a microscopic level. Nanoelectronic

a microscopic level. Nanoelectronics is the further scaling of devices down to nanometer levels. Modern devices

are already in the nanometer regime, with below 100 nm

processing having been standard since about 2002.[36]

Microelectronic components are created by chemically

fabricating wafers of semiconductors such as silicon (at

higher frequencies, compound semiconductors like gallium arsenide and indium phosphide) to obtain the desired transport of electronic charge and control of current. The field of microelectronics involves a significant

amount of chemistry and material science and requires

the electronic engineer working in the field to have a very

good working knowledge of the effects of quantum mechanics.

[37]

2.5 Signal processing

Main article: Signal processing

Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals.

[38] Signals can be either analog, in which

case the signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital, in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information. For analog signals, signal processing may involve the amplification and filtering of audio signals for

audio equipment or the modulation and demodulation of

signals for telecommunications. For digital signals, signal

processing may involve the compression, error detection

and error correction of digitally sampled signals.[39]

Signal Processing is a very mathematically oriented and

intensive area forming the core of digital signal process-
ing and it is rapidly expanding with new applications in

every field of electrical engineering such as communications, control, radar, audio engineering, broadcast engineering, power electronics, and biomedical engineering

as many already existing analog systems are replaced with

their digital counterparts. Analog signal processing is still

important in the design of many control systems.

DSP processor ICs are found in every type of mod-
ern electronic systems and products including, SDTV