What is an integrated circuit

Integrated circuit is a kind of micro electronic device or component, which interconnects the transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, inductors and other elements and wiring required in a circuit by a certain process, makes them on a small or several small semiconductor wafers or dielectric substrates, and then packages them in a tube shell to become a micro structure with the required circuit functions; All the components have been integrated in structure, making the electronic components a great step towards miniaturization, low power consumption and high reliability. It is indicated by the letter "IC" in the circuit.

After the invention and mass production of transistors, various solid-state semiconductor components such as diodes and transistors were widely used, replacing the functions and roles of vacuum tubes in circuits. In the middle and late 20th century, the progress of semiconductor manufacturing technology made it possible to integrate circuits. Compared with the manual assembly circuit using individual discrete electronic components, the integrated circuit can integrate a large number of microcrystal tubes into a small chip, which is a great progress. The large-scale production capacity, reliability of integrated circuits and the modularization method of circuit design ensure that standardized integrated circuits are rapidly adopted instead of discrete transistors - discrete transistors.

Integrated circuits have two main advantages over discrete transistors: cost and performance. The low cost is due to the fact that all components of the chip are printed as a unit through photolithography technology, instead of making only one transistor at a time. The high performance is due to the fast switching of components, which consumes less energy, because the components are small and close to each other. In 2006, the chip area increased from a few square millimeters to 350 mm ²， Per mm ² Up to one million transistors. The first integrated circuit prototype was completed by Jack Kirby in 1958. It includes a bipolar transistor, three resistors and a capacitor. Compared with the size of modern technology, it is quite large.