The intent of this paper is to discuss how the very high-tech industry of MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) might impact the rather low-tech, macro-sized industry of refrigeration. The differences between these two industries are many but the most prominent are product size and methods of manufacture. The refrigeration products and components are of the order of one meter down to a millimeter or the limiting size that mechanical machinery methods are capable of manufacturing. The MEMS products begin in the hundreds of micrometers (10{sup}(-4)) and go down to the order of micrometers (10{sup}(-6)). [It is convenient to remember that the typical human hair is of the order of 100 micrometers in diameter.] Of course, the final MEMS 'package', which is necessary to protect it from its in situ environment and for affecting connections to a macro-sized system component, often grows to a thumbnail sized entity.
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