Intel Gifts Stephen Hawking Silicon Wafer for his Birthday

Chip-maker Intel has presented scientist Stephen Hawking with a special gift for his 71st birthday - a silicon "wafer".

The unique silicon "wafer", which is used to make Intel chips, is inscribed with the words "Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking" hundreds of times in nano-scale copper lines. Each letter measures about 10 microns, which is about 10 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

The gift was given to Hawking during a ceremony at the Center for Theoretical Cosmology, held in Cambridge, U.K., to celebrate his birthday as well as his contributions to physics and cosmology.

"This is a very special gift for a very extraordinary scientist and an extraordinary man," said Martin Curley, Intel vice president and director of Intel Labs Europe, as he gifted Hawking with the present.

"Professor Hawking's ground breaking scientific contributions and his remarkable resilience are an inspiration to us all."

Apart from the birthday gift, Intel is also developing a new communication technology in a bid to help him communicate faster, reports Slashgear. Hawking, who suffers from degenerative motor neuron disease, is apparently facing difficulties in communication as he is slowly losing the ability to control his muscles.

The physicist is using twitches of his cheek muscle to compose one word at a time, which is then communicated through his speech-generating computer system. He can speak about one word, each minute. Intel is working on a technology that will help Hawking to communicate faster using Morse code in a system which takes inputs not just from Hawking's cheek twitches, but also from his mouth and eyebrow movements, the Slashgear report said.