Enter the information age. Information is the raw material for many of the business activities (B1) this new era, just as iron and steel were the basic commodities in the (B2) of the industrial age. The world’’s knowledge is said to be doubling every eight years. This knowledge (B3) is stimulating economic progress. The need to collect, yze, and communicate great (B4) of information is producing new products and services, creating jobs, and (B5) career opportunities. The information age is (B6) considered to be a phenomenon of the service sector of the economy, (B7) than a product of heavy industry. Certainly, rocketing information technologies are creating new capabilities (B8) knowledge-based service spheres. (B9) changes just as dramatic are (B10) industry, giving people the (B11) to do challenging work in exciting new ways. Manufacturing is full (B12) in the information age. From design to production, the manufacturing (B13) has long been information-intensive. It always has required exacting communication to describe what goes into products and how to make them. Now, computer technology is giving factory managers new (B14) to gather all of this information and use it to control production. Telecommunications are producing error-free communication between the design office and the factory, computer-aided design is enabling engineers to (B15) product performance and manufacturing process on video displays, before resources are committed to build and test prototypes. Techniques like these are bringing (B16) new advances in manufacturing productivity. Just as coal fueled the (B17) to an industrial society, so microelectronics is powering the (B18) of the information age. Microelectronic information-management tools are (B19) U.S. industrial capability, which remains (B20) to America’’s economic well-being and national security.

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