It seems like we've been hearing about self-destructing electronics for ages now, and not just in cheesy TV shows or action-packed Tom Cruise movies. Last year, DARPA announced a new initiative called VAPR—a descriptive acronym for Vanishing Programmable Resources—to fund the development of "electronic systems capable of physically disappearing in a controlled, triggerable manner." IBM became one of the first companies to receive funding when the military research organization awarded them $3.45 million for the development of a self-destructing microchip.