[ Thanks to Jason
Greenwood for this link. ]
“Money doesn’t grow on trees, and neither does germanium.
“Germanium, No. 32 in the periodic table of the elements, has
become a crucial ingredient for straining the silicon lattice in
microprocessors and maybe increasing the performance of
communications chips. Indium, which was so rare in 1924 that the
world’s supply of the isolated element was about a gram, is being
incorporated more into chips as well…”