This is the story of how quartz becomes a computer, and it’s a story that–for the typical notebook computer–stretches across nearly every continent, dozens of countries, and literally hundreds of different companies.

At its center is the heart of every computer, the microprocessor–a tiny flake of silicon whose millions of microscopic, precision-engineered circuits do computational work that would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago. But before it becomes a microchip, that little bit of silicon starts out the same way a gravel road does: as a pile of rock chips, hammered out of an open-pit quarry by dynamite and heavy machinery.

Just who ultimately transforms that silicon into a PC might surprise you. “HP or Dell computers basically don’t have anything HP or Dell inside them,” says Eric Williams, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Arizona State University who has done extensive research into the PC supply chain. “[Those companies are] designers of computers, purchasers of components, and assemblers. They may even contract out the assembly.”

It would be impossible to trace in a magazine article the origin of every single component in your notebook, because it contains hundreds of parts, including microchips, the hard drive, the battery pack, the LCD, circuit boards, resistors, capacitors, wires, and even the pieces of metal and plastic that make up the casing. But we can take a look at the web of production leading up to one component–the CPU–and use that to shed some light on just how global the PC industry has become.

Birth of a Microchip
All microprocessors begin life as a pile of quartz chips, plus a source of carbon–usually charcoal or coal. Quartz, whose main ingredient is silica, is one of the most abundant minerals on the Earth’s surface, and it’s mined all over the world. Charcoal is similarly widespread; all you need is wood and an oven to make it.

This fundamental simplicity means silicon could be produced almost anywhere. In practice, however, the major producers of silicon are industrialized countries where there’s a market for the metal, led by China, the United States, Brazil, and Norway. So let’s say our CPU starts life as a pile of quartz and carbon in a factory in Brazil. After being heated in an electrical furnace to 2,000 degrees C, the silica and carbon react to form molten silicon and carbon dioxide.

Impurities are skimmed off the top of the silicon, and it’s further purified by bubbling oxygen and other gases through the liquid. Afterward, the silicon metal is poured into ingots for sale.

At this point, industrial-grade silicon is about 95 to 99 percent pure. But it needs to be far purer than that before it is usable in the electronics industry. So silicon metal next travels to a refining company, such as Germany’s Wacker Chemie or U.S.-based Dow Corning. It’s combined with hydro-chloric acid to form trichlorosilane, a volatile liquid that is repeatedly distilled and purified.

Afterward, the trichlorosilane is converted to polysilicon (a form of silicon that’s 99.9999 percent pure) and hydrochloric acid. The United States is the leading producer of polysilicon, followed by Japan.

Assembling the Circuits
Next, the block of polysilicon journeys to a wafer fabrication facility. Silicon wafers are the foundation on which all microchips are built. Each is a thin, circular plate of extremely pure silicon, typically 150mm, 200mm, or 300mm in diameter and between 0.5mm and 0.75mm thick. Japan is the largest producer of silicon wafers, with the U.S. coming in second.

At the wafer factory, polysilicon is melted in a fused silica crucible and then carefully crystallized into cylindrical silicon ingots. The ingots are sawn into thin circular wafers, which are polished until they’re extremely flat. Finally, silicon wafers are shipped to the chip foundry, where they will be made into microprocessors.

In the entire PC production chain, this is the one step in which the United States still has a stake in production. Intel makes about half of its CPUs in the U.S., although it is expanding production to overseas factories in Leixlip, Ireland, and in Jerusalem. AMD makes the majority of its chips in Dresden, Germany.

Once complete, the wafer contains hundreds of tiny, rectangular chips. The chips are tested for flaws while still on the wafer. Then, in Intel’s case, whole wafers are shipped overseas to processing plants in Malaysia or the Philippines, where they’re sawn apart before being tested again and assembled into the familiar ceramic packages with wires sticking out of them–what most of us would recognize as “chips.”

From CPU to PC
The next step in the assembly of a notebook is placing the chip on a printed circuit board–the notebook’s motherboard. This final leg of the journey begins, most likely, in a factory just outside of Shanghai, China.

Circuit boards are typically made of epoxy and glass or ceramic, upon which circuits made of copper paths have been etched using a process similar to the one used in microchip fabrication, except on a far larger scale. Taiwan entered the motherboard manufacturing market in the late 1970s and quickly dominated the industry. But Taiwanese manufacturers now outsource most of the manufacturing of their boards to China, where labor is cheaper.

In addition to the CPU, a motherboard uses hundreds of other components, including transistors, resistors, diodes, LEDs, capacitors, and more, all of which are plugged or soldered into place. These are mostly made in China, from a wide variety of materials. For example, transistors and diodes are usually made of silicon or germanium, whereas light-emitting diodes use different compounds, depending on their color (aluminum gallium arsenide for red light, indium gallium nitride for blue).

Additional components, such as modems and wireless cards, may be plugged into the motherboard. A hard drive, optical drive, battery pack, LCD, keyboard, and track pad are all added. The notebook’s external casing is snapped and screwed into place. For almost all of these components, the primary suppliers are in China or Southeast Asia (see the graphic on page 89 for more detailed info).

The final step is adding the branding: the logo identifying a notebook’s ostensible “manufacturer.” The finished notebook is then shipped to a distribution point in the U.S., Europe, or Asia, depending on where it will be sold.

Toxic Electronics?
The list of substances that go into a notebook is long, and many of the chemicals used, such as beryllium, lead, chromium, and mercury compounds, are toxic or carcinogenic to humans. But how much of a risk are these chemicals in reality?

The answer depends on what you mean by risk. For PC users most of these chemicals are not hazardous, since they’re present in very small amounts and are well contained within the notebook’s plastic and metal housing.

The standout exceptions are brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which are used in plastics. Computers and consumer electronics products appear to emit BFRs for some time, and in one recent study, BFRs were found in dust samples taken from dozens of different office environments. The toxicity of BFRs hasn’t been established, but some people are urging manufacturers to play it safe and eliminate them. “We want companies to go completely bromine-free and use compounds that do not off-gas,” says Ted Smith, the founder of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an environmental advocacy organization.

Apart from user risk, the use of toxic chemicals in notebooks is a concern because of the risks that these chemicals pose to factory workers–and the environmental damage the chemicals may cause if the computer winds up in a landfill.

As a result, the SVTC urges users not to throw out their PCs, and its Computer Take Back Campaign has been pressuring manufacturers to recycle old computers at the end of their useful lives. (Some, including Dell, already do.) For more information and to find a local recycler, visit the group’s site, www.computertakeback.com.

The Well-Traveled Notebook
The end result of this long production chain is that a supposedly American product from a company such as HP, Dell, or Apple is actually built overseas, almost entirely from overseas components.

In fact, “original design manufacturers,” or ODMs, for example Taiwan’s Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, and AsusTek, handle an increasing amount of the design work, too, leaving their U.S. partners to do little more than advertising, shipping, and billing. According to market analysis firm iSuppli, 82.6 percent of the notebook PCs made in 2006 were assembled by Taiwanese companies, and more than 85 percent of those were built in the greater Shanghai area.

“What’s happened is the Taiwanese ODMs started off in printed circuit-board assembly and motherboard manufacturing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and they’ve just been climbing that value chain ever since,” says Michael J. Palma, an analyst for IDC. “Laptops are now so embedded in the Asian manufacturing base that they’ll continue to be made there for a long while.”

Whether that represents a triumph or a failure of American industrial ingenuity depends on your perspective. But one thing is sure: Even if you never take your new notebook on a plane, it’s already a well-seasoned world traveler.

Inside A Microprocessor
A modern CPU is a three-dimensional complex of circuits, all resting on a thin subtrate of silicon. One chip may contain up to 20 separate layers.

Illustration: Inside a Microprocessor

What–And Where–A Laptop Comes From
This Dell Latitude D600 was reaching the end of its useful life, so we hastened its demise and cracked it open. But please, don’t try this at home. You’ll ruin the notebook–and some components, such as the battery, may be hazardous when opened.

Illustration: Where a Laptop Comes From

Toxics in your PC?
PCs contain a wide range of potentially hazardous chemicals. Although many of these compounds are not dangerous to you as a user (unless you eat your PC), they can still cause environmental problems if your computer isn’t properly recycled.

Illustration: Toxics in Your PC?

A Lithium Ion Battery
Most modern notebook batteries use lithium ion or lithium ion polymer technologies. Here’s what a typical lithium ion battery pack looks like–on the inside.

Illustration: Inside a Lithium Ion Battery

Link: What’s Inside Your Laptop?

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At CES 2007, vendors including Tzero, Alareon, Staccato, and even DaimlerChrysler are demonstrating wireless networking technologies based on ultrawideband (UWB). And in the coming year, many manufacturers will be shipping Wireless USB products based on UWB technologies.

WiMedia is the leading UWB standard, although it is not used by every company utilizing UWB. Wireless USB (WUSB) is an extension of the USB 2.0 standard, and it is based on WiMedia.

The coming wave of products is thanks to the work of two standards-setting bodies: The WiMedia Alliance and the USB Implementers Forum. Both are in the final stages of certifying products as compatible with their respective standards–which is why WUSB products are not on the market yet, but will be soon.

The WiMedia Alliance, which boasts 273 member companies, defines and promotes the WiMedia standard–a platform for UWB-based communication that will guarantee interoperability between devices from various manufacturers. (Non-WiMedia UWB technologies, by contrast, will only work with other devices from the same manufacturer.)

WiMedia enables a theoretical bandwidth of 480Mbits/sec, with low power consumption. In practice, UWB vendors are seeing data rates of about 100 to 200 Mbits/sec, since data protocols add some overhead, and because local conditions can interfere with transmissions.

The USB Forum, on the other hand, is the industry organization responsible for overseeing USB standards. Wireless USB is based on WiMedia, and is designed to be completely compatible with existing USB products. Think of it as USB over WiMedia instead of USB over copper cables.

More than 900 companies are members of the USB Forum, of which about 200 are actively working on Wireless USB.

The work of both organizations is coming to a head this year. The WiMedia Alliance is in the process of certifying devices for compatibility and interoperability. The first certified products will be WiMedia chips from vendors such as Staccato and Alareon, which will ship to consumer electronics manufacturers in Q1 of this year. Consumer products will in turn be available for purchase by mid 2007.

The first WiMedia and WUSB products to hit the market will be WUSB hubs and dongles: You connect a dongle to your USB port, and it communicates wirelessly with a USB hub across the room, so you can plug USB devices into the hub and have them show up on your computer just as if they’d been plugged directly into it.

By the second half of 2007, industry insiders say, WUSB will be integrated into notebook computers, printers, and other desktop devices; WUSB-enabled portable devices, such as cameras, will follow in late 2007 or early 2008.

WUSB isn’t the only field where UWB technologies are being used. For instance, Tzero Technologies is demonstrating a WiMedia-based system for transmitting HDMI signals wirelessly. That would enable you to connect a media player to a widescreen TV (or several TVs) without running cables.

Tzero’s technology will be integrated into products from UTStarcom, Siemens, Audiovox, and others–products which are slated to hit the market by mid 2007.

Link: Ultra Wideband Will Cut the Cable Clutter

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But why stop there? With potentially gigabits per second of bandwidth coming into the home–and massive amounts of data to move around inside the home, between PCs, network-attached storage devices, media receivers, and more–why not finish the job and run fiber optic cables to every room in the house?

One problem is the current difficulty and expense of terminating fiber optic connections, a process that is currently time-consuming, requires expensive equipment, and demands well-trained personnel. Startup telecommunications company Tenvera is addressing that problem with a system for distributing and easily terminating fiber connections throughout the home.

Today at CES 2007, Tenvera showed elements of their system, which they say enables contractors to outfit every room in a new house with fiber connections for a total cost of about $1,000.

“It doesn’t make sense to invest in fiber to the home without finishing the job and running fiber throughout the house,” said Tenvera CEO Brent J. Ware in a press conference today.

The Tenvera system consists of pre-terminated spools of fiber, in lengths ranging from 25 meters to 200 meters, which can be blown through a 5mm flexible plastic tubing that Tenvera calls “micro duct.” Rather than cutting the fiber to length, the spools are simply stacked in an optical distribution unit, with any excess fiber remaining coiled on the spool. A connector near the hub of each spool connects to the fiber network of the provisioning ISP.

On the far end, in each room of the house, a patent-pending ferrule (a small metal plug) connects to terminating modules designed by Tenvera. These modules, which are small enough to fit into a standard-sized electrical gang box (the metal box behind electric outlets), convert the fiber signal into more common consumer electronics connections, such as coaxial cable, component video, Ethernet, and–soon–HDMI. A direct fiber jack is also possible, for future consumer electronics products that accept fiber connections. The modules are interchangeable, so consumers can convert a coax connection to an Ethernet port simply by plugging in a different Tenvera module.

Although few homes currently have fiber-to-the-home connections, nearly 6 million U.S. houses are within easy reach of a fiber data pipeline, Tenvera officials say, and that number is growing, as telecommunications companies build out their fiber networks. The next step, according to Tenvera, is bringing fiber’s nearly limitless bandwidth capacity into the home.

“Unless we complete the network by bringing fiber throughout the home, the demand for bandwidth will never be satisfied,” said Ware.

Tenvera’s system is available now, and the company says it is currently being considered by numerous residential and commercial building companies. Builders in Colorado, New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Florida, and the Bahamas are currently installing Tenvera’s products in high-end homes starting this month.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story misspelled Ware’s name.

Link: Fiber in the Home: Tenvera Shows Residential Fiber-Optic Solution

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Key to that strategy for many vendors is the emerging home media and entertainment market – what PC vendors used to call “convergence” devices. In this new world, the PC is being reborn as a media server, hosting high definition video, photos, music, and games that you’ll view and enjoy on a home theater system or large-screen HDTV.

But what if your data is in one room and the screen you want to watch it on is in another? At CES, many companies will be showing home networking products – both wired and wireless – designed to solve that problem and related issues.

Leading the pack wll be a host of routers and adapters designed to capitalize on (and improve upon) the draft 802.11n standard. Although the IEEE (the standards body responsible for the family of wireless standards known as Wi-Fi) has said that it won’t finalize 802.11n until July 2007, many vendors have been shipping routers based on the draft standard for more than a year. That’s because 802.11n delivers data rates as high as 540 Mbits/s at peak (and 200 Mbits/s sustained), which is ten times that of the current high-speed standard, 802.11g. With that much speed, vendors are betting that consumers are willing to take a flyer on the technology, even if the standard isn’t fully cooked yet.

What’s more, the multiple-antenna configurations of most 802.11n routers will help increase the range of these networks, up to about 150 feet indoors. At CES, look for vendors such as ZyXEL and Ruckus Wireless to bring out new pre-N and draft-N gear with improved speed, range, and reliability. Ruckus, for instance, has a “smart Wi-Fi subsystem” that promises to increase the reliability of wireless transmissions enough to support multiple streams of compressed HD video data.

Many companies will also be touting the emerging Wireless USB standard, based on Ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless. (UWB will also be used by the next generation of Bluetooth transceivers as well as a planned wireless version of IEEE 1394, or FireWire.) UWB is capable of delivering 480 Mbits/s at short ranges – up to about 10 feet – although interference and the protocol overhead involved with carrying USB data over UWB reduces the effective throughput to 100 or 200 Mbits/s.

Look for a wave of Wireless USB hubs and dongles (adapters for wirelessly connecting USB devices to the USB ports of your computer) at CES, along with promises of Wireless USB integrated into notebooks and other devices to come later in 2007.

A third area of networking activity at CES will center on home powerline networking products. Long the neglected stepchild of other, more mainstream technologies, powerline networking has finally come into its own with the rise of Homeplug AV, a standard that enables 100Mbps data transmission rates over ordinary powerlines. At that speed, powerline networking is comparable to Ethernet and has plenty of capacity for streaming media applications.

Finally, many networking and storage vendors at CES will be pinning their hopes on the relatively new Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) technology. DLNA-compatible devices are able to share media with one another over a home network without lots of configuration hassles. The promise is that you’ll be able to plug a DLNA storage device into your network and instantly be able to access the MP3 files on it through your home stereo’s DLNA-compatible media player, for instance.

With such a standard in place, vendors are hoping that network attached storage (NAS) devices will become much more attractive to consumer’s as central repositories for a family’s burgeoning collection of digital media files. Accordingly, look for plenty of DLNA-compatible NAS devices to be announced at CES.

PCMag.com will have the lowdown on specific announcements in these and other networking topics starting the first week of January, so stay tuned. Got CES networking news we should know about? Write to Dylan Tweney at dylan_tweney@ziffdavis.com and let him know what’s new!

Link: Networking Vendors Will Invade Your Living Room at CES

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