Is it true that God is in the details?

Well, I've seen plenty of projects shot to hell by ill-designed and ill-chosen electronic components. I made my living for a couple of years as a component engineer. Sometimes all you need to implement a big grand product strategy is one little tiny lump of silicon, epoxy, and copper. Here are a few of those.

Ideafiles about components:

• Self-Erasing EPROMs

Hey, you don't need a whole text file to understand this one. LEDs that emit ultraviolet light are under development. Stick one of those inside the epoxy package of a conventional EPROM and you get an EPROM that can be electrically erased without all the electrical compromises of today's EEPROMs.

• Colored epoxy packaging

  Here's another one that doesn't need further explanation. The distinctive blue surface-mount packages of IBM's CPUs, RAMDACs and other components have improved IBM's brand recognition among engineers and end users alike. The cost to IBM? Probably low but worth it, I'm sure.

  An even cheaper alternative would be colored epoxy. Make your company the first to use bright red, orange, or green epoxy-- matching your corporate logo colors-- and you'll have an instant trademark of great power.