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An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of
electronic circuit An electronic circuit is composed of individual electronic components, such as resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes, connected by conductive wires or traces through which electric current can flow. It is a type of electric ...
s on one small flat piece (or "chip") of
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...
material, usually
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ...
. Large numbers of tiny
MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
s (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors) integrate into a small chip. This results in circuits that are orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less expensive than those constructed of discrete
electronic component An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are mostly industrial products, available in a singular form and are no ...
s. The IC's
mass production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...
capability, reliability, and building-block approach to
integrated circuit design Integrated circuit design, or IC design, is a sub-field of electronics engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic compon ...
has ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of designs using discrete
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
s. ICs are now used in virtually all electronic equipment and have revolutionized the world of
electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
.
Computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
s,
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
s and other
home appliance A home appliance, also referred to as a domestic appliance, an electric appliance or a household appliance, is a machine which assists in household functions such as cooking, cleaning and food preservation. Appliances are divided into three ...
s are now inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the small size and low cost of ICs such as modern computer processors and microcontrollers.
Very-large-scale integration Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) ...
was made practical by technological advancements in metal–oxide–silicon (MOS)
semiconductor device fabrication Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are ...
. Since their origins in the 1960s, the size, speed, and capacity of chips have progressed enormously, driven by technical advances that fit more and more MOS transistors on chips of the same size – a modern chip may have many billions of MOS transistors in an area the size of a human fingernail. These advances, roughly following
Moore's law Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empi ...
, make the computer chips of today possess millions of times the capacity and thousands of times the speed of the computer chips of the early 1970s. ICs have two main advantages over discrete circuits: cost and performance. The cost is low because the chips, with all their components, are printed as a unit by
photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protec ...
rather than being constructed one transistor at a time. Furthermore, packaged ICs use much less material than discrete circuits. Performance is high because the IC's components switch quickly and consume comparatively little power because of their small size and proximity. The main disadvantage of ICs is the high cost of designing them and fabricating the required
photomask A photomask is an opaque plate with holes or transparencies that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern. They are commonly used in photolithography and the production of integrated circuits (ICs or "chips") in particular. Masks are used ...
s. This high initial cost means ICs are only commercially viable when high production volumes are anticipated.


Terminology

An ''integrated circuit'' is defined as:
A circuit in which all or some of the circuit elements are inseparably associated and electrically interconnected so that it is considered to be indivisible for the purposes of construction and commerce.
Circuits meeting this definition can be constructed using many different technologies, including
thin-film transistor A thin-film transistor (TFT) is a special type of field-effect transistor (FET) where the transistor is thin relative to the plane of the device. TFTs are grown on a supporting (but non-conducting) substrate. A common substrate is glass, becaus ...
s, thick-film technologies, or hybrid integrated circuits. However, in general usage ''integrated circuit'' has come to refer to the single-piece circuit construction originally known as a ''monolithic integrated circuit'', often built on a single piece of silicon.


History

An early attempt at combining several components in one device (like modern ICs) was the Loewe 3NF vacuum tube from the 1920s. Unlike ICs, it was designed with the purpose of
tax avoidance Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdi ...
, as in Germany, radio receivers had a tax that was levied depending on how many tube holders a radio receiver had. It allowed radio receivers to have a single tube holder. Early concepts of an integrated circuit go back to 1949, when German engineer
Werner Jacobi Werner Jacobi (March 31, 1904 – probably May 3, 1985) was a German physicist and inventor. Life and work Jacobi studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich and then physics at the University of Munich. In his diss ...
( Siemens AG) filed a patent for an integrated-circuit-like semiconductor amplifying device showing five
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
s on a common substrate in a three-stage
amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost t ...
arrangement. Jacobi disclosed small and cheap
hearing aid A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers s ...
s as typical industrial applications of his patent. An immediate commercial use of his patent has not been reported. Another early proponent of the concept was Geoffrey Dummer (1909–2002), a radar scientist working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the British
Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...
. Dummer presented the idea to the public at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington, D.C. on 7 May 1952. He gave many symposia publicly to propagate his ideas and unsuccessfully attempted to build such a circuit in 1956. Between 1953 and 1957,
Sidney Darlington Sidney Darlington (July 18, 1906 – October 31, 1997) was an American electrical engineer and inventor of a transistor configuration in 1953, the Darlington pair. He advanced the state of network theory, developing the insertion-loss synth ...
and Yasuo Tarui ( Electrotechnical Laboratory) proposed similar chip designs where several transistors could share a common active area, but there was no
electrical isolation Galvanic isolation is a principle of isolating functional sections of electrical systems to prevent current flow; no direct conduction path is permitted.John Huntington ''Show Networks and Control Systems: Formerly Control Systems for Live ...
to separate them from each other. The monolithic integrated circuit chip was enabled by the inventions of the
planar process The planar process is a manufacturing process used in the semiconductor industry to build individual components of a transistor, and in turn, connect those transistors together. It is the primary process by which silicon integrated circuit chips ...
by
Jean Hoerni Jean Amédée Hoerni (September 26, 1924 – January 12, 1997) was a Swiss-American engineer. He was a silicon transistor pioneer, and a member of the "traitorous eight". He developed the planar process, an important technology for reliably fab ...
and p–n junction isolation by
Kurt Lehovec Kurt Lehovec (June 12, 1918 – February 17, 2012) was one of the pioneers of the integrated circuit. While also pioneering the photo-voltaic effect, light-emitting diodes and lithium batteries, he innovated the concept of p-n junction iso ...
. Hoerni's invention was built on Mohamed M. Atalla's work on surface passivation, as well as Fuller and Ditzenberger's work on the diffusion of boron and phosphorus impurities into silicon,
Carl Frosch Carl John Frosch (September 6, 1908 – May 18, 1984)Carl J Frosch (1908-1984)
Find A Grave was a ...
and Lincoln Derick's work on surface protection, and
Chih-Tang Sah Chih-Tang "Tom" Sah (; born in November 1932 in Beijing, China) is a Chinese-American electronics engineer and condensed matter physicist. He is best known for inventing CMOS (complementary MOS) logic with Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconducto ...
's work on diffusion masking by the oxide.


First integrated circuits

A precursor idea to the IC was to create small ceramic substrates (so-called ''micromodules''), each containing a single miniaturized component. Components could then be integrated and wired into a bidimensional or tridimensional compact grid. This idea, which seemed very promising in 1957, was proposed to the US Army by
Jack Kilby Jack St. Clair Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005) was an American electrical engineer who took part (along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild) in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments (TI) in 1 ...
and led to the short-lived Micromodule Program (similar to 1951's Project Tinkertoy). However, as the project was gaining momentum, Kilby came up with a new, revolutionary design: the IC. Newly employed by
Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...
, Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the integrated circuit in July 1958, successfully demonstrating the first working example of an integrated circuit on 12 September 1958.''The Chip that Jack Built''
(c. 2008), (HTML), Texas Instruments, Retrieved 29 May 2008.
In his patent application of 6 February 1959, Kilby described his new device as "a body of semiconductor material … wherein all the components of the electronic circuit are completely integrated". The first customer for the new invention was the
US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sig ...
. Kilby won the 2000
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
in physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit. However, Kilby's invention was a hybrid integrated circuit (hybrid IC), rather than a monolithic integrated circuit (monolithic IC) chip. Kilby's IC had external wire connections, which made it difficult to mass-produce. Half a year after Kilby,
Robert Noyce Robert Norton Noyce (December 12, 1927 – June 3, 1990), nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", was an American physicist and entrepreneur who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel Corporation in 1968. He is also credited wit ...
at
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
invented the first true monolithic IC chip. It was a new variety of integrated circuit, more practical than Kilby's implementation. Noyce's design was made of
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ...
, whereas Kilby's chip was made of
germanium Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid in the carbon group that is chemically similar to its group neighbors ...
. Noyce's monolithic IC put all components on a chip of silicon and connected them with copper lines. Noyce's monolithic IC was fabricated using the
planar process The planar process is a manufacturing process used in the semiconductor industry to build individual components of a transistor, and in turn, connect those transistors together. It is the primary process by which silicon integrated circuit chips ...
, developed in early 1959 by his colleague
Jean Hoerni Jean Amédée Hoerni (September 26, 1924 – January 12, 1997) was a Swiss-American engineer. He was a silicon transistor pioneer, and a member of the "traitorous eight". He developed the planar process, an important technology for reliably fab ...
. Modern IC chips are based on Noyce's monolithic IC, rather than Kilby's hybrid IC. NASA's Apollo Program was the largest single consumer of integrated circuits between 1961 and 1965.Hall, Eldon C. (1996)
"Journey to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer"
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. pp. 18–19.


TTL integrated circuits

Transistor–transistor logic Transistor–transistor logic (TTL) is a logic family built from bipolar junction transistors. Its name signifies that transistors perform both the logic function (the first "transistor") and the amplifying function (the second "transistor"), as o ...
(TTL) was developed by
James L. Buie James L. Buie (1920 – September 25, 1988) was an American scientist and inventor working for TRW Inc who developed transistor–transistor logic, a form of integrated circuit technology that became widely used early in the integrated circuit ...
in the early 1960s at TRW Inc. TTL became the dominant integrated circuit technology during the 1970s to early 1980s. Dozens of TTL integrated circuits were a standard method of construction for the
processors A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...
of
minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ' ...
s and
mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...
s.
Computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
s such as IBM 360 mainframes,
PDP-11 The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were sol ...
minicomputers and the desktop
Datapoint 2200 The Datapoint 2200 was a mass-produced programmable computer terminal usable as a computer, designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) founders Phil Ray and Gus Roche and announced by CTC in June 1970 (with units shipping in 1971). It was ...
were built from bipolar integrated circuits, either TTL or the even faster emitter-coupled logic (ECL).


MOS integrated circuits

Nearly all modern IC chips are
metal–oxide–semiconductor The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
(MOS) integrated circuits, built from
MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
s (metal–oxide–silicon field-effect transistors). The MOSFET (also known as the MOS transistor), which was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and
Dawon Kahng Dawon Kahng ( ko, 강대원; May 4, 1931 – May 13, 1992) was a Korean-American electrical engineer and inventor, known for his work in solid-state electronics. He is best known for inventing the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effe ...
at Bell Labs in 1959, made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits. In contrast to bipolar transistors which required a number of steps for the p–n junction isolation of transistors on a chip, MOSFETs required no such steps but could be easily isolated from each other. Its advantage for integrated circuits was pointed out by Dawon Kahng in 1961. The list of IEEE milestones includes the first integrated circuit by Kilby in 1958, Hoerni's planar process and Noyce's planar IC in 1959, and the MOSFET by Atalla and Kahng in 1959. The earliest experimental MOS IC to be fabricated was a 16-transistor chip built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
in 1962. General Microelectronics later introduced the first commercial MOS integrated circuit in 1964, a 120-transistor
shift register A shift register is a type of digital circuit using a cascade of flip-flops where the output of one flip-flop is connected to the input of the next. They share a single clock signal, which causes the data stored in the system to shift from one loc ...
developed by Robert Norman. By 1964, MOS chips had reached higher
transistor density The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or "chip"). It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microprocesso ...
and lower manufacturing costs than bipolar chips. MOS chips further increased in complexity at a rate predicted by
Moore's law Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empi ...
, leading to
large-scale integration An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
(LSI) with hundreds of
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
s on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s. Following the development of the
self-aligned gate In semiconductor electronics fabrication technology, a self-aligned gate is a transistor manufacturing approach whereby the gate electrode of a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) is used as a mask for the doping of ...
(silicon-gate) MOSFET by Robert Kerwin, Donald Klein and John Sarace at Bell Labs in 1967, the first silicon-gate MOS IC technology with
self-aligned gate In semiconductor electronics fabrication technology, a self-aligned gate is a transistor manufacturing approach whereby the gate electrode of a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) is used as a mask for the doping of ...
s, the basis of all modern
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSF ...
integrated circuits, was developed at Fairchild Semiconductor by
Federico Faggin Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group d ...
in 1968. The application of MOS LSI chips to
computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...
was the basis for the first
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s, as engineers began recognizing that a complete
computer processor In computing and computer science, a processor or processing unit is an electrical component (digital circuit) that performs operations on an external data source, usually memory or some other data stream. It typically takes the form of a micropr ...
could be contained on a single MOS LSI chip. This led to the inventions of the microprocessor and the
microcontroller A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs ( processor cores) along with memory and programmabl ...
by the early 1970s. During the early 1970s, MOS integrated circuit technology enabled the very large-scale integration (VLSI) of more than 10,000 transistors on a single chip. At first, MOS-based computers only made sense when high density was required, such as
aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and ast ...
and pocket calculators. Computers built entirely from TTL, such as the 1970
Datapoint 2200 The Datapoint 2200 was a mass-produced programmable computer terminal usable as a computer, designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) founders Phil Ray and Gus Roche and announced by CTC in June 1970 (with units shipping in 1971). It was ...
, were much faster and more powerful than single-chip MOS microprocessors such as the 1972
Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 ("''eight-thousand-eight''" or "''eighty-oh-eight''") is an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), implemented and manufactured by Intel, and introduced in April 1972. It is an 8-bit CP ...
until the early 1980s.Ken Shirriff
"The Texas Instruments TMX 1795: the (almost) first, forgotten microprocessor"
2015.
Advances in IC technology, primarily smaller features and larger chips, have allowed the number of MOS transistors in an integrated circuit to double every two years, a trend known as Moore's law. Moore originally stated it would double every year, but he went on to change the claim to every two years in 1975. This increased capacity has been used to decrease cost and increase functionality. In general, as the feature size shrinks, almost every aspect of an IC's operation improves. The cost per transistor and the switching power consumption per transistor goes down, while the memory capacity and
speed In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quant ...
go up, through the relationships defined by
Dennard scaling Dennard scaling, also known as MOSFET scaling, is a scaling law which states roughly that, as transistors get smaller, their power density stays constant, so that the power use stays in proportion with area; both voltage and current scale (downward) ...
(
MOSFET scaling The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
). Because speed, capacity, and power consumption gains are apparent to the end user, there is fierce competition among the manufacturers to use finer geometries. Over the years, transistor sizes have decreased from tens of
micron The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Un ...
s in the early 1970s to 10
nanometer 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the molecular scale. The nanometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: nm) or nanometer (American and British English spelling differences#-re, ...
s in 2017 with a corresponding million-fold increase in transistors per unit area. As of 2016, typical chip areas range from a few square millimeters to around 600 mm2, with up to 25 million
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
s per mm2.. 15,300,000,000 transistors in 610 mm2. The expected shrinking of feature sizes and the needed progress in related areas was forecast for many years by the
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is a set of documents produced by a group of semiconductor industry experts. These experts are representative of the sponsoring organisations which include the Semiconductor Industry A ...
(ITRS). The final ITRS was issued in 2016, and it is being replaced by the
International Roadmap for Devices and Systems The International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, or IRDS, is a set of predictions about likely developments in electronic devices and systems. The IRDS was established in 2016 and is the successor to the International Technology Roadmap for Semico ...
. Initially, ICs were strictly electronic devices. The success of ICs has led to the integration of other technologies, in an attempt to obtain the same advantages of small size and low cost. These technologies include mechanical devices, optics, and sensors. *
Charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
s, and the closely related
active-pixel sensor An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOS field-e ...
s, are chips that are sensitive to
light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 t ...
. They have largely replaced
photographic film Photographic film is a strip or sheet of transparent film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine ...
in scientific, medical, and consumer applications. Billions of these devices are now produced each year for applications such as cellphones, tablets, and digital cameras. This sub-field of ICs won the Nobel Prize in 2009.. * Very small mechanical devices driven by electricity can be integrated onto chips, a technology known as
microelectromechanical systems Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), also written as micro-electro-mechanical systems (or microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems) and the related micromechatronics and microsystems constitute the technology of microscopic devices, ...
. These devices were developed in the late 1980s and are used in a variety of commercial and military applications. Examples include DLP projectors,
inkjet printer Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...
s, and
accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acce ...
s and
MEMS gyroscope A vibrating structure gyroscope, defined by the IEEE as a Coriolis vibratory gyroscope (CVG), is a gyroscope that uses a vibrating structure to determine the rate of rotation. A vibrating structure gyroscope functions much like the halteres of fl ...
s used to deploy automobile
airbag An airbag is a vehicle occupant-restraint system using a bag designed to inflate extremely quickly, then quickly deflate during a collision. It consists of the airbag cushion, a flexible fabric bag, an inflation module, and an impact sensor. T ...
s. * Since the early 2000s, the integration of optical functionality ( optical computing) into silicon chips has been actively pursued in both academic research and in industry resulting in the successful commercialization of silicon based integrated optical transceivers combining optical devices (modulators, detectors, routing) with CMOS based electronics.
Photonic integrated circuit A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) or integrated optical circuit is a microchip containing two or more photonic components which form a functioning circuit. This technology detects, generates, transports, and processes light. Photonic integrated c ...
s that use light are also being developed, using the emerging field of physics known as
photonics Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though ...
. * Integrated circuits are also being developed for
sensor A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...
applications in
medical implants An implant is a medical device manufactured to replace a missing biological structure, support a damaged biological structure, or enhance an existing biological structure. Medical implants are man-made devices, in contrast to a transplant, whi ...
or other bioelectronic devices. Special sealing techniques have to be applied in such biogenic environments to avoid
corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engi ...
or
biodegradation Biodegradation is the breakdown of organic matter by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. It is generally assumed to be a natural process, which differentiates it from composting. Composting is a human-driven process in which biodegra ...
of the exposed semiconductor materials. , the vast majority of all transistors are
MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
s fabricated in a single layer on one side of a chip of silicon in a flat two-dimensional
planar process The planar process is a manufacturing process used in the semiconductor industry to build individual components of a transistor, and in turn, connect those transistors together. It is the primary process by which silicon integrated circuit chips ...
. Researchers have produced prototypes of several promising alternatives, such as: * various approaches to stacking several layers of transistors to make a
three-dimensional integrated circuit A three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) is a MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by stacking as many as 16 or more ICs and interconnecting them vertically using, for instance, through-silicon vias (TSVs) or ...
(3DIC), such as through-silicon via, "monolithic 3D", stacked wire bonding, and other methodologies. * transistors built from other materials:
graphene transistor Potential graphene applications include lightweight, thin, and flexible electric/photonics circuits, solar cells, and various medical, chemical and industrial processes enhanced or enabled by the use of new graphene materials. In 2008, graphene ...
s, molybdenite transistors,
carbon nanotube field-effect transistor A carbon nanotube field-effect transistor (CNTFET) is a field-effect transistor that utilizes a single carbon nanotube or an array of carbon nanotubes as the channel material instead of bulk silicon in the traditional MOSFET structure. First demons ...
, gallium nitride transistor, transistor-like nanowire electronic devices, organic field-effect transistor, etc. * fabricating transistors over the entire surface of a small sphere of silicon. * modifications to the substrate, typically to make " flexible transistors" for a flexible display or other flexible electronics, possibly leading to a roll-away computer. As it becomes more difficult to manufacture ever smaller transistors, companies are using
multi-chip module A multi-chip module (MCM) is generically an electronic assembly (such as a package with a number of conductor terminals or "pins") where multiple integrated circuits (ICs or "chips"), semiconductor dies and/or other discrete components are in ...
s,
three-dimensional integrated circuit A three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) is a MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by stacking as many as 16 or more ICs and interconnecting them vertically using, for instance, through-silicon vias (TSVs) or ...
s, package on package,
High Bandwidth Memory High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is a high-speed computer memory interface for 3D-stacked synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) initially from Samsung, AMD and SK Hynix. It is used in conjunction with high-performance graphics accelerators ...
and through-silicon vias with die stacking to increase performance and reduce size, without having to reduce the size of the transistors. Such techniques are collectively known as advanced packaging. Advanced packaging is mainly divided into 2.5D and 3D packaging. 2.5D describes approaches such as multi-chip modules while 3D describes approaches where dies are stacked in one way or another, such as package on package and high bandwidth memory. All approaches involve 2 or more dies in a single package. Alternatively, approaches such as
3D NAND Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...
stack multiple layers on a single die.


Design

The cost of designing and developing a complex integrated circuit is quite high, normally in the multiple tens of millions of dollars. Therefore, it only makes economic sense to produce integrated circuit products with high production volume, so the non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs are spread across typically millions of production units. Modern semiconductor chips have billions of components, and are too complex to be designed by hand. Software tools to help the designer are essential. Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic
computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
(ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems, including integrated circuits. The tools work together in a design flow that engineers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips.


Types

Integrated circuits can be broadly classified into analog,
digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals ** Digital camera, which captures and stores digital ...
and mixed signal, consisting of analog and digital signaling on the same IC. Digital integrated circuits can contain billions of
logic gate A logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output. Depending on the context, the term may refer to an ideal logic ga ...
s, flip-flops,
multiplexer In electronics, a multiplexer (or mux; spelled sometimes as multiplexor), also known as a data selector, is a device that selects between several analog or digital input signals and forwards the selected input to a single output line. The sel ...
s, and other circuits in a few square millimeters. The small size of these circuits allows high speed, low power dissipation, and reduced
manufacturing cost Manufacturing cost is the sum of costs of all resources consumed in the process of making a product. The manufacturing cost is classified into three categories: direct materials cost, direct labor cost and manufacturing overhead. It is a factor in ...
compared with board-level integration. These digital ICs, typically
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s, DSPs, and
microcontroller A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs ( processor cores) along with memory and programmabl ...
s, use
boolean algebra In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas i ...
to process "one" and "zero" signals. Among the most advanced integrated circuits are the
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s or " cores", used in personal computers, cell-phones,
microwave oven A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce ...
s, etc. Several cores may be integrated together in a single IC or chip. Digital memory chips and
application-specific integrated circuit An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-effici ...
s (ASICs) are examples of other families of integrated circuits. In the 1980s,
programmable logic device A programmable logic device (PLD) is an electronic component used to build reconfigurable digital circuits. Unlike digital logic constructed using discrete logic gates with fixed functions, a PLD has an undefined function at the time of manu ...
s were developed. These devices contain circuits whose logical function and connectivity can be programmed by the user, rather than being fixed by the integrated circuit manufacturer. This allows a chip to be programmed to do various LSI-type functions such as
logic gate A logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output. Depending on the context, the term may refer to an ideal logic ga ...
s, adders and registers. Programmability comes in various forms – devices that can be programmed only once, devices that can be erased and then re-programmed using UV light, devices that can be (re)programmed using
flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...
, and
field-programmable gate array A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term ''Field-programmability, field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specifi ...
s (FPGAs) which can be programmed at any time, including during operation. Current FPGAs can (as of 2016) implement the equivalent of millions of gates and operate at
frequencies Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is e ...
up to 1 GHz. Analog ICs, such as
sensor A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...
s, power management circuits, and
operational amplifier An operational amplifier (often op amp or opamp) is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier with a differential input and, usually, a single-ended output. In this configuration, an op amp produces an output potential (relative to c ...
s (op-amps), process continuous signals, and perform analog functions such as amplification,
active filter An active filter is a type of analog circuit implementing an electronic filter using active components, typically an amplifier. Amplifiers included in a filter design can be used to improve the cost, performance and predictability of a filter. ...
ing,
demodulation Demodulation is extracting the original information-bearing signal from a carrier wave. A demodulator is an electronic circuit (or computer program in a software-defined radio) that is used to recover the information content from the modulate ...
, and mixing. ICs can combine analog and digital circuits on a chip to create functions such as
analog-to-digital converter In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D, or A-to-D) is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal. An ADC may also provide ...
s and
digital-to-analog converter In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC, D/A, D2A, or D-to-A) is a system that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) performs the reverse function. There are several DAC archit ...
s. Such mixed-signal circuits offer smaller size and lower cost, but must account for signal interference. Prior to the late 1990s, radios could not be fabricated in the same low-cost
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSF ...
processes as microprocessors. But since 1998, radio chips have been developed using RF CMOS processes. Examples include Intel's DECT cordless phone, or
802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer com ...
(
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...
) chips created by
Atheros Qualcomm Atheros is a developer of semiconductor Integrated circuit, chips for Computer network, network communications, particularly wireless chipsets. Founded under the name T-Span Systems in 1998 by experts in signal processing and VLSI desig ...
and other companies. Modern
electronic component distributors Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...
often further sub-categorize integrated circuits: * Digital ICs are categorized as logic ICs (such as
microprocessors A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
and microcontrollers),
memory chip Semiconductor memory is a digital electronic semiconductor device used for digital data storage, such as computer memory. It typically refers to devices in which data is stored within metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) memory cells on a sil ...
s (such as MOS memory and floating-gate memory), interface ICs ( level shifters, serializer/deserializer, etc.),
power management IC Power management integrated circuits (power management ICs or PMICs or PMU as unit) are integrated circuits for power management. Although PMIC refers to a wide range of chips (or modules in system-on-a-chip devices), most include several DC/DC ...
s, and programmable devices. * Analog ICs are categorized as
linear integrated circuit A linear integrated circuit or analog chip is a set of miniature electronic analog circuits formed on a single piece of semiconductor material. Description The voltage and current at specified points in the circuits of analog chips vary continuou ...
s and RF circuits (
radio frequency Radio frequency (RF) is the oscillation rate of an alternating electric current or voltage or of a magnetic, electric or electromagnetic field or mechanical system in the frequency range from around to around . This is roughly between the up ...
circuits). *
Mixed-signal integrated circuit A mixed-signal integrated circuit is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuits on a single semiconductor die.data acquisition Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real-world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems, abbreviated by the acro ...
ICs (including A/D converters, D/A converters, digital potentiometers), clock/timing ICs,
switched capacitor A switched capacitor (SC) is an electronic circuit that implements a function by moving charges into and out of capacitors when electronic switches are opened and closed. Usually, non-overlapping clock signals are used to control the switches, s ...
(SC) circuits, and RF CMOS circuits. *
Three-dimensional integrated circuit A three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) is a MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by stacking as many as 16 or more ICs and interconnecting them vertically using, for instance, through-silicon vias (TSVs) or ...
s (3D ICs) are categorized into through-silicon via (TSV) ICs and Cu-Cu connection ICs.


Manufacturing


Fabrication

The
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...
s of the
periodic table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...
of the
chemical element A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their atomic nucleus, nuclei, including the pure Chemical substance, substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements canno ...
s were identified as the most likely materials for a ''
solid-state Solid state, or solid matter, is one of the four fundamental states of matter. Solid state may also refer to: Electronics * Solid-state electronics, circuits built of solid materials * Solid state ionics, study of ionic conductors and their ...
vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...
''. Starting with copper oxide, proceeding to
germanium Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid in the carbon group that is chemically similar to its group neighbors ...
, then
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ...
, the materials were systematically studied in the 1940s and 1950s. Today,
monocrystalline silicon Monocrystalline silicon, more often called single-crystal silicon, in short mono c-Si or mono-Si, is the base material for silicon-based discrete components and integrated circuits used in virtually all modern electronic equipment. Mono-Si also s ...
is the main substrate used for ICs although some III-V compounds of the periodic table such as
gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monolithic microwave integrated c ...
are used for specialized applications like LEDs,
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
s,
solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.
s and the highest-speed integrated circuits. It took decades to perfect methods of creating
crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...
s with minimal defects in semiconducting materials'
crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of the ordered arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from the intrinsic nature of the constituent particles to form symmetric pattern ...
.
Semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...
ICs are fabricated in a
planar process The planar process is a manufacturing process used in the semiconductor industry to build individual components of a transistor, and in turn, connect those transistors together. It is the primary process by which silicon integrated circuit chips ...
which includes three key process steps
photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protec ...
, deposition (such as
chemical vapor deposition Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In typical CVD, the wafer (subst ...
), and
etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...
. The main process steps are supplemented by doping and cleaning. More recent or high-performance ICs may instead use
multi-gate A multigate device, multi-gate MOSFET or multi-gate field-effect transistor (MuGFET) refers to a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) that has more than one gate on a single transistor. The multiple gates may be control ...
FinFET A fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) is a multigate device, a MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the channel, ...
or
GAAFET A multigate device, multi-gate MOSFET or multi-gate field-effect transistor (MuGFET) refers to a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) that has more than one gate on a single transistor. The multiple gates may be contro ...
transistors instead of planar ones, starting at the 22 nm node (Intel) or 16/14 nm nodes. Mono-crystal silicon wafers are used in most applications (or for special applications, other semiconductors such as
gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monolithic microwave integrated c ...
are used). The wafer need not be entirely silicon.
Photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protec ...
is used to mark different areas of the substrate to be doped or to have polysilicon, insulators or metal (typically aluminium or copper) tracks deposited on them.
Dopant A dopant, also called a doping agent, is a trace of impurity element that is introduced into a chemical material to alter its original electrical or optical properties. The amount of dopant necessary to cause changes is typically very low. Whe ...
s are impurities intentionally introduced to a semiconductor to modulate its electronic properties. Doping is the process of adding dopants to a semiconductor material. * Integrated circuits are composed of many overlapping layers, each defined by photolithography, and normally shown in different colors. Some layers mark where various dopants are diffused into the substrate (called diffusion layers), some define where additional ions are implanted (implant layers), some define the conductors (doped polysilicon or metal layers), and some define the connections between the conducting layers (via or contact layers). All components are constructed from a specific combination of these layers. * In a self-aligned
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSF ...
process, a
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
is formed wherever the gate layer (polysilicon or metal)
crosses Crosses may refer to: * Cross, the symbol Geography * Crosses, Cher, a French municipality * Crosses, Arkansas, a small community located in the Ozarks of north west Arkansas Language * Crosses, a truce term used in East Anglia and Lincolnshire ...
a diffusion layer. Mead, Carver A.; Conway, Lynn (1980) ''
Introduction to VLSI Systems Introduction, The Introduction, Intro, or The Intro may refer to: General use * Introduction (music), an opening section of a piece of music * Introduction (writing), a beginning section to a book, article or essay which states its purpose and ...
'' Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley: ISBN 2-201-04358-0
* Capacitive structures, in form very much like the parallel conducting plates of a traditional electrical
capacitor A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of ...
, are formed according to the area of the "plates", with insulating material between the plates. Capacitors of a wide range of sizes are common on ICs. * Meandering stripes of varying lengths are sometimes used to form on-chip
resistor A resistor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element. In electronic circuits, resistors are used to reduce current flow, adjust signal levels, to divide voltages, bias active e ...
s, though most logic circuits do not need any resistors. The ratio of the length of the resistive structure to its width, combined with its sheet resistivity, determines the resistance. * More rarely, inductive structures can be built as tiny on-chip coils, or simulated by
gyrator A gyrator is a passive, linear, lossless, two-port electrical network element proposed in 1948 by Bernard D. H. Tellegen as a hypothetical fifth linear element after the resistor, capacitor, inductor and ideal transformer. Unlike the four conv ...
s. Since a CMOS device only draws current on the '' transition'' between
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...
states, CMOS devices consume much less current than
bipolar junction transistor A bipolar junction transistor (BJT) is a type of transistor that uses both electrons and electron holes as charge carriers. In contrast, a unipolar transistor, such as a field-effect transistor, uses only one kind of charge carrier. A bipola ...
devices. A
random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the ...
is the most regular type of integrated circuit; the highest density devices are thus memories; but even a
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
will have memory on the chip. (See the regular array structure at the bottom of the first image.) Although the structures are intricate – with widths which have been shrinking for decades – the layers remain much thinner than the device widths. The layers of material are fabricated much like a photographic process, although light
wave In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...
s in the
visible spectrum The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called '' visible light'' or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to ...
cannot be used to "expose" a layer of material, as they would be too large for the features. Thus
photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they alwa ...
s of higher frequencies (typically
ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30  PHz) to 400 nm (750  THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation ...
) are used to create the patterns for each layer. Because each feature is so small,
electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...
s are essential tools for a process engineer who might be
debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve i ...
a fabrication process. Each device is tested before packaging using automated test equipment (ATE), in a process known as
wafer testing Wafer testing is a step performed during semiconductor device fabrication after BEOL process is finished. During this step, performed before a wafer is sent to die preparation, all individual integrated circuits that are present on the wafer are tes ...
, or wafer probing. The wafer is then cut into rectangular blocks, each of which is called a ''
die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
''. Each good die (plural ''dice'', ''dies'', or ''die'') is then connected into a package using
aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...
(or gold) bond wires which are thermosonically bonded to ''pads'', usually found around the edge of the die. Thermosonic bonding was first introduced by A. Coucoulas which provided a reliable means of forming these vital electrical connections to the outside world. After packaging, the devices go through final testing on the same or similar ATE used during wafer probing.
Industrial CT scanning Industrial computed tomography (CT) scanning is any computer-aided tomographic process, usually X-ray computed tomography, that uses irradiation to produce three-dimensional internal and external representations of a scanned object. Industrial ...
can also be used. Test cost can account for over 25% of the cost of fabrication on lower-cost products, but can be negligible on low-yielding, larger, or higher-cost devices. , a fabrication facility (commonly known as a ''semiconductor fab'') can cost over US$12 billion to construct. The cost of a fabrication facility rises over time because of increased complexity of new products; this is known as
Rock's law Rock's law or Moore's second law, named for Arthur Rock or Gordon Moore, says that the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years. As of 2015, the price had already reached about 14 billion US dollars. Rock's law can b ...
. Such a facility features: * The wafers up to 300 mm in diameter (wider than a common
dinner plate A plate is a broad, mainly flat vessel on which food can be served. A plate can also be used for ceremonial or decorative purposes. Most plates are circular, but they may be any shape, or made of any water-resistant material. Generally plat ...
). * , 5 nm transistors. *
Copper interconnect In semiconductor technology, copper interconnects are interconnects made of copper. They are used in silicon integrated circuits (ICs) to reduce propagation delays and power consumption. Since copper is a better conductor than aluminium, ICs u ...
s where copper wiring replaces aluminum for interconnects. *
Low-κ dielectric In semiconductor manufacturing, a low-κ is a material with a small relative dielectric constant (κ, kappa) relative to silicon dioxide. Low-κ dielectric material implementation is one of several strategies used to allow continued scaling of micr ...
insulators. *
Silicon on insulator In semiconductor manufacturing, silicon on insulator (SOI) technology is fabrication of silicon semiconductor devices in a layered silicon–insulator–silicon substrate, to reduce parasitic capacitance within the device, thereby improving per ...
(SOI). *
Strained silicon Strained silicon is a layer of silicon in which the silicon atoms are stretched beyond their normal interatomic distance. This can be accomplished by putting the layer of silicon over a substrate of silicon–germanium (). As the atoms in the si ...
in a process used by IBM known as
Strained silicon directly on insulator Strained silicon directly on insulator (SSDOI) is a procedure developed by IBM which removes the silicon germanium layer in the strained silicon process leaving the strained silicon directly on the insulator. In contrast, strained silicon on SG ...
(SSDOI). * Multigate devices such as tri-gate transistors. ICs can be manufactured either in-house by integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) or using the foundry model. IDMs are vertically integrated companies (like
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
and
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
) that design, manufacture and sell their own ICs, and may offer design and/or manufacturing (foundry) services to other companies (the latter often to fabless companies). In the foundry model, fabless companies (like
Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
) only design and sell ICs and outsource all manufacturing to pure play foundries such as
TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...
. These foundries may offer IC design services.


Packaging

The earliest integrated circuits were packaged in ceramic flat packs, which continued to be used by the military for their reliability and small size for many years. Commercial circuit packaging quickly moved to the
dual in-line package In microelectronics, a dual in-line package (DIP or DIL), is an electronic component package with a rectangular housing and two parallel rows of electrical connecting pins. The package may be through-hole mounted to a printed circuit board ( ...
(DIP), first in ceramic and later in plastic, which is commonly
cresol Cresols (also hydroxytoluene or cresylic acid) are a group of aromatic organic compounds. They are widely-occurring phenols (sometimes called ''phenolics'') which may be either natural or manufactured. They are also categorized as methylphenol ...
-
formaldehyde Formaldehyde ( , ) ( systematic name methanal) is a naturally occurring organic compound with the formula and structure . The pure compound is a pungent, colourless gas that polymerises spontaneously into paraformaldehyde (refer to section ...
- novolac. In the 1980s pin counts of VLSI circuits exceeded the practical limit for DIP packaging, leading to
pin grid array A pin grid array (PGA) is a type of integrated circuit packaging. In a PGA, the package is square or rectangular, and the pins are arranged in a regular array on the underside of the package. The pins are commonly spaced 2.54 mm (0.1") a ...
(PGA) and leadless chip carrier (LCC) packages.
Surface mount Surface-mount technology (SMT), originally called planar mounting, is a method in which the electrical components are mounted directly onto the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB). An electrical component mounted in this manner is referred ...
packaging appeared in the early 1980s and became popular in the late 1980s, using finer lead pitch with leads formed as either gull-wing or J-lead, as exemplified by the
small-outline integrated circuit A small outline integrated circuit (SOIC) is a surface-mounted integrated circuit (IC) package which occupies an area about 30–50% less than an equivalent dual in-line package (DIP), with a typical thickness being 70% less. They are generall ...
(SOIC) package – a carrier which occupies an area about 30–50% less than an equivalent DIP and is typically 70% thinner. This package has "gull wing" leads protruding from the two long sides and a lead spacing of 0.050 inches. In the late 1990s, plastic quad flat pack (PQFP) and
thin small-outline package Thin small outline package (TSOP) is a type of surface mount IC package. They are very low-profile (about 1mm) and have tight lead spacing (as low as 0.5mm). They are frequently used for RAM or Flash memory ICs due to their high pin count and ...
(TSOP) packages became the most common for high pin count devices, though PGA packages are still used for high-end
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s.
Ball grid array A ball grid array (BGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging (a chip carrier) used for integrated circuits. BGA packages are used to permanently mount devices such as microprocessors. A BGA can provide more interconnection pins than can be pu ...
(BGA) packages have existed since the 1970s. Flip-chip Ball Grid Array packages, which allow for a much higher pin count than other package types, were developed in the 1990s. In an FCBGA package, the die is mounted upside-down (flipped) and connects to the package balls via a package substrate that is similar to a printed-circuit board rather than by wires. FCBGA packages allow an array of
input-output In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signal ...
signals (called Area-I/O) to be distributed over the entire die rather than being confined to the die periphery. BGA devices have the advantage of not needing a dedicated socket but are much harder to replace in case of device failure. Intel transitioned away from PGA to
land grid array The land grid array (LGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging for integrated circuits (ICs) that is notable for having the pins on the socket (when a socket is used) rather than the integrated circuit. An LGA can be electrically connected to a ...
(LGA) and BGA beginning in 2004, with the last PGA socket released in 2014 for mobile platforms. , AMD uses PGA packages on mainstream desktop processors, BGA packages on mobile processors, and high-end desktop and server microprocessors use LGA packages. Electrical signals leaving the die must pass through the material electrically connecting the die to the package, through the conductive traces (paths) in the package, through the leads connecting the package to the conductive traces on the
printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich str ...
. The materials and structures used in the path these electrical signals must travel have very different electrical properties, compared to those that travel to different parts of the same die. As a result, they require special design techniques to ensure the signals are not corrupted, and much more electric power than signals confined to the die itself. When multiple dies are put in one package, the result is a
system in package A system in a package (SiP) or system-in-package is a number of integrated circuits enclosed in one or more chip carrier packages that may be stacked using package on package. The SiP performs all or most of the functions of an electronic system, ...
, abbreviated . A
multi-chip module A multi-chip module (MCM) is generically an electronic assembly (such as a package with a number of conductor terminals or "pins") where multiple integrated circuits (ICs or "chips"), semiconductor dies and/or other discrete components are in ...
(), is created by combining multiple dies on a small substrate often made of ceramic. The distinction between a large MCM and a small printed circuit board is sometimes fuzzy. Packaged integrated circuits are usually large enough to include identifying information. Four common sections are the manufacturer's name or logo, the part number, a part production batch number and
serial number A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...
, and a four-digit date-code to identify when the chip was manufactured. Extremely small
surface-mount technology Surface-mount technology (SMT), originally called planar mounting, is a method in which the electrical components are mounted directly onto the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB). An electrical component mounted in this manner is referred ...
parts often bear only a number used in a manufacturer's
lookup table In computer science, a lookup table (LUT) is an array that replaces runtime computation with a simpler array indexing operation. The process is termed as "direct addressing" and LUTs differ from hash tables in a way that, to retrieve a value v w ...
to find the integrated circuit's characteristics. The manufacturing date is commonly represented as a two-digit year followed by a two-digit week code, such that a part bearing the code 8341 was manufactured in week 41 of 1983, or approximately in October 1983.


Intellectual property

The possibility of copying by photographing each layer of an integrated circuit and preparing
photomasks A photomask is an opaque plate with holes or transparencies that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern. They are commonly used in photolithography and the production of integrated circuits (ICs or "chips") in particular. Masks are used ...
for its production on the basis of the photographs obtained is a reason for the introduction of legislation for the protection of layout designs. The US Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 established intellectual property protection for photomasks used to produce integrated circuits. A diplomatic conference held at Washington, D.C. in 1989 adopted a Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Integrated Circuits, also called the Washington Treaty or IPIC Treaty. The treaty is currently not in force, but was partially integrated into the TRIPS agreement. There are several United States patents connected to the integrated circuit, which include patents by J.S. Kilby , , and by R.F. Stewart . National laws protecting IC layout designs have been adopted in a number of countries, including Japan, the EC, the UK, Australia, and Korea. The UK enacted the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, c. 48, § 213, after it initially took the position that its copyright law fully protected chip topographies. See
British Leyland Motor Corp. v. Armstrong Patents Co. ''British Leyland Motor Corp. v Armstrong Patents Co.'' is a 1986 decision of the House of Lords concerning the doctrine of non-derogation from grants. This doctrine is comparable to, but somewhat broader than, the doctrine of legal estoppel, a ...
Criticisms of inadequacy of the UK copyright approach as perceived by the US chip industry are summarized in further chip rights developments. Australia passed the Circuit Layouts Act of 1989 as a ''sui generis'' form of chip protection. Korea passed the ''Act Concerning the Layout-Design of Semiconductor Integrated Circuits'' in 1992.


Generations

In the early days of simple integrated circuits, the technology's large scale limited each chip to only a few
transistors upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
, and the low degree of integration meant the design process was relatively simple. Manufacturing yields were also quite low by today's standards. As
metal–oxide–semiconductor The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
(MOS) technology progressed, millions and then billions of MOS transistors could be placed on one chip, and good designs required thorough planning, giving rise to the field of
electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work togeth ...
, or EDA. Some SSI and MSI chips, like discrete transistors, are still mass-produced, both to maintain old equipment and build new devices that require only a few gates. The
7400 series The 7400 series of integrated circuits (ICs) are a popular logic family of transistor–transistor logic (TTL) logic chips. In 1964, Texas Instruments introduced the SN5400 series of logic chips, in a ceramic semiconductor package. A lo ...
of TTL chips, for example, has become a
de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces (for example, by early entrance to the market). is a Latin phrase (literally " in fact"), here meaning "in practice b ...
and remains in production.


Small-scale integration (SSI)

The first integrated circuits contained only a few transistors. Early digital circuits containing tens of transistors provided a few logic gates, and early linear ICs such as the
Plessey The Plessey Company plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after World War II by acquisition of companies and formed overseas compan ...
SL201 or the
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...
TAA320 had as few as two transistors. The number of transistors in an integrated circuit has increased dramatically since then. The term "large scale integration" (LSI) was first used by IBM scientist
Rolf Landauer Rolf William Landauer (February 4, 1927 – April 27, 1999) was a German-American physicist who made important contributions in diverse areas of the thermodynamics of information processing, condensed matter physics, and the conductivity of dis ...
when describing the theoretical concept; that term gave rise to the terms "small-scale integration" (SSI), "medium-scale integration" (MSI), "very-large-scale integration" (VLSI), and "ultra-large-scale integration" (ULSI). The early integrated circuits were SSI. SSI circuits were crucial to early
aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and ast ...
projects, and aerospace projects helped inspire development of the technology. Both the Minuteman missile and Apollo program needed lightweight digital computers for their inertial guidance systems. Although the
Apollo Guidance Computer The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a digital computer produced for the Apollo program that was installed on board each Apollo command module (CM) and Apollo Lunar Module (LM). The AGC provided computation and electronic interfaces for guidanc ...
led and motivated integrated-circuit technology, it was the Minuteman missile that forced it into mass-production. The Minuteman missile program and various other
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
programs accounted for the total $4 million integrated circuit market in 1962, and by 1968, U.S. Government spending on
space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consi ...
and
defense Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense indus ...
still accounted for 37% of the $312 million total production. The demand by the U.S. Government supported the nascent integrated circuit market until costs fell enough to allow IC firms to penetrate the industrial market and eventually the
consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. ...
market. The average price per integrated circuit dropped from $50.00 in 1962 to $2.33 in 1968. Integrated circuits began to appear in consumer products by the turn of the 1970s decade. A typical application was FM inter-carrier sound processing in television receivers. The first application
MOS MOS or Mos may refer to: Technology * MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor * Mathematical Optimization Society * Model output statistics, a weather-forecasting technique * MOS (fil ...
chips were small-scale integration (SSI) chips. Following Mohamed M. Atalla's proposal of the MOS integrated circuit chip in 1960, the earliest experimental MOS chip to be fabricated was a 16-transistor chip built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
in 1962. The first practical application of MOS SSI chips was for
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
s.


Medium-scale integration (MSI)

The next step in the development of integrated circuits introduced devices which contained hundreds of transistors on each chip, called "medium-scale integration" (MSI).
MOSFET scaling The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
technology made it possible to build high-density chips. By 1964, MOS chips had reached higher
transistor density The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or "chip"). It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microprocesso ...
and lower manufacturing costs than bipolar chips. In 1964, Frank Wanlass demonstrated a single-chip 16-bit
shift register A shift register is a type of digital circuit using a cascade of flip-flops where the output of one flip-flop is connected to the input of the next. They share a single clock signal, which causes the data stored in the system to shift from one loc ...
he designed, with a then-incredible 120 MOS transistors on a single chip. The same year, General Microelectronics introduced the first commercial MOS integrated circuit chip, consisting of 120 p-channel MOS transistors. It was a 20-bit
shift register A shift register is a type of digital circuit using a cascade of flip-flops where the output of one flip-flop is connected to the input of the next. They share a single clock signal, which causes the data stored in the system to shift from one loc ...
, developed by Robert Norman and Frank Wanlass. MOS chips further increased in complexity at a rate predicted by
Moore's law Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empi ...
, leading to chips with hundreds of
MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
s on a chip by the late 1960s.


Large-scale integration (LSI)

Further development, driven by the same MOSFET scaling technology and economic factors, led to "large-scale integration" (LSI) by the mid-1970s, with tens of thousands of transistors per chip. The masks used to process and manufacture SSI, MSI and early LSI and VLSI devices (such as the microprocessors of the early 1970s) were mostly created by hand, often using
Rubylith image:Rubylith two rolls 2012.jpg, 200px, Rolls of lithographer's tape (these rolls are made by 3M). The roll in the back is 1/4 inch, the one in the front, 1/2 inch width. These products are often called "Rubylith" tape because Rubylith has become ...
-tape or similar. For large or complex ICs (such as memories or
processors A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...
), this was often done by specially hired professionals in charge of circuit layout, placed under the supervision of a team of engineers, who would also, along with the circuit designers, inspect and verify the correctness and completeness of each mask. Integrated circuits such as 1K-bit RAMs, calculator chips, and the first microprocessors, that began to be manufactured in moderate quantities in the early 1970s, had under 4,000 transistors. True LSI circuits, approaching 10,000 transistors, began to be produced around 1974, for computer main memories and second-generation microprocessors.


Very-large-scale integration (VLSI)

"Very-large-scale integration" ( VLSI) is a development started with hundreds of thousands of transistors in the early 1980s, and, as of 2016,
transistor count The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or "chip"). It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microprocessors ...
s continue to grow beyond ten billion transistors per chip. Multiple developments were required to achieve this increased density. Manufacturers moved to smaller
MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
design rules and cleaner fabrication facilities. The path of process improvements was summarized by the
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is a set of documents produced by a group of semiconductor industry experts. These experts are representative of the sponsoring organisations which include the Semiconductor Industry A ...
(ITRS), which has since been succeeded by the
International Roadmap for Devices and Systems The International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, or IRDS, is a set of predictions about likely developments in electronic devices and systems. The IRDS was established in 2016 and is the successor to the International Technology Roadmap for Semico ...
(IRDS). Electronic design tools improved, making it practical to finish designs in a reasonable time. The more energy-efficient
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSF ...
replaced NMOS and PMOS, avoiding a prohibitive increase in
power consumption Electric energy consumption is the form of energy consumption that uses electrical energy. Electric energy consumption is the actual energy demand made on existing electricity supply for transportation, residential, industrial, commercial, and ot ...
. The complexity and density of modern VLSI devices made it no longer feasible to check the masks or do the original design by hand. Instead, engineers use tools to perform most
functional verification In electronic design automation, functional verification is the task of verifying that the logic design conforms to specification. Functional verification attempts to answer the question "Does this proposed design do what is intended?" This is ...
work. In 1986, one-megabit
random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the ...
(RAM) chips were introduced, containing more than one million transistors. Microprocessor chips passed the million-transistor mark in 1989, and the billion-transistor mark in 2005. The trend continues largely unabated, with chips introduced in 2007 containing tens of billions of memory transistors.


ULSI, WSI, SoC and 3D-IC

To reflect further growth of the complexity, the term ''ULSI'' that stands for "ultra-large-scale integration" was proposed for chips of more than 1 million transistors. Wafer-scale integration (WSI) is a means of building very large integrated circuits that uses an entire silicon wafer to produce a single "super-chip". Through a combination of large size and reduced packaging, WSI could lead to dramatically reduced costs for some systems, notably massively parallel supercomputers. The name is taken from the term Very-Large-Scale Integration, the current state of the art when WSI was being developed.Benj Edward
(14 Nov 2022) Hungry for AI? New supercomputer contains 16 dinner-plate-size chips
"Exascale Cerebras Andromeda cluster packs more cores than 1,954 Nvidia A100 GPUs".
A
system-on-a-chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
(SoC or SOC) is an integrated circuit in which all the components needed for a computer or other system are included on a single chip. The design of such a device can be complex and costly, and whilst performance benefits can be had from integrating all needed components on one die, the cost of licensing and developing a one-die machine still outweigh having separate devices. With appropriate licensing, these drawbacks are offset by lower manufacturing and assembly costs and by a greatly reduced power budget: because signals among the components are kept on-die, much less power is required (see
Packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a c ...
). Further, signal sources and destinations are physically closer on die, reducing the length of wiring and therefore latency,
transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission ** ...
power costs and
waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utilit ...
from communication between modules on the same chip. This has led to an exploration of so-called Network-on-Chip (NoC) devices, which apply system-on-chip design methodologies to digital communication networks as opposed to traditional bus architectures. A
three-dimensional integrated circuit A three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) is a MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by stacking as many as 16 or more ICs and interconnecting them vertically using, for instance, through-silicon vias (TSVs) or ...
(3D-IC) has two or more layers of active electronic components that are integrated both vertically and horizontally into a single circuit. Communication between layers uses on-die signaling, so power consumption is much lower than in equivalent separate circuits. Judicious use of short vertical wires can substantially reduce overall wire length for faster operation.


Silicon labeling and graffiti

To allow identification during production, most silicon chips will have a serial number in one corner. It is also common to add the manufacturer's logo. Ever since ICs were created, some chip designers have used the silicon surface area for surreptitious, non-functional images or words. These are sometimes referred to as
chip art Chip art, also known as silicon art, chip graffiti or silicon doodling, refers to microscopic artwork built into integrated circuits, also called chips or ICs. Since ICs are printed by photolithography, not constructed a component at a time, th ...
, silicon art, silicon graffiti or silicon doodling.


ICs and IC families

* The
555 timer IC The 555 timer IC is an integrated circuit (chip) used in a variety of timer, delay, pulse generation, and Electronic oscillator, oscillator applications. Derivatives provide two (#556 dual timer, 556) or four (#558 quad timer, 558) timing circui ...
* The
Operational amplifier An operational amplifier (often op amp or opamp) is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier with a differential input and, usually, a single-ended output. In this configuration, an op amp produces an output potential (relative to c ...
*
7400-series integrated circuits The 7400 series of integrated circuits (ICs) are a popular logic family of transistor–transistor logic (TTL) logic chips. In 1964, Texas Instruments introduced the SN5400 series of logic chips, in a ceramic semiconductor package. A low- ...
*
4000-series integrated circuits The 4000 series is a CMOS logic family of integrated circuits (ICs) first introduced in 1968 by RCA. It had a supply voltage range of 5V to 20V, which is much wider than any contemporary logic family. Almost all IC manufacturers active during t ...
, the CMOS counterpart to the 7400 series (see also: 74HC00 series) *
Intel 4004 The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs. The 4004 was the first significa ...
, generally regarded as the first commercially available
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
, which led to the famous 8080 CPU and then the
IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
's 8088, 80286,
486 __NOTOC__ Year 486 (Roman numerals, CDLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Basilius and Longinus (or, less freq ...
etc. * The
MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...
and
Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...
microprocessors, used in many home computers of the early 1980s * The Motorola 6800 series of computer-related chips, leading to the
68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Secto ...
and
88000 The 88000 (m88k for short) is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Motorola during the 1980s. The MC88100 arrived on the market in 1988, some two years after the competing SPARC and MIPS. Due to the late start and extensive delays re ...
series (used in some
Apple computers Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
and in the 1980s Commodore
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...
series) * The LM-series of analog integrated circuits


See also

*
Central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...
* Chipset *
CHIPS and Science Act The CHIPS and Science Act is a U.S. federal statute enacted by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 9, 2022. The act provides roughly $280 billion in new funding to boost domestic research ...
* Integrated injection logic *
Ion implantation Ion implantation is a low-temperature process by which ions of one element are accelerated into a solid target, thereby changing the physical, chemical, or electrical properties of the target. Ion implantation is used in semiconductor device fa ...
*
Microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre- ...
*
Monolithic microwave integrated circuit Monolithic microwave integrated circuit, or MMIC (sometimes pronounced "mimic"), is a type of integrated circuit (IC) device that operates at microwave frequencies (300 MHz to 300 GHz). These devices typically perform functions such as ...
* Multi-threshold CMOS * Silicon-germanium *
Sound chip A sound chip is an integrated circuit (chip) designed to produce audio signals through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics. Sound chips are typically fabricated on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal chips that process ...
*
SPICE A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices a ...
*
Chip carrier In electronics, a chip carrier is one of several kinds of surface-mount technology packages for integrated circuits (commonly called "chips"). Connections are made on all four edges of a square package; compared to the internal cavity for moun ...
*
Dark silicon In the electronics industry, dark silicon is the amount of circuitry of an integrated circuit that cannot be powered-on at the nominal operating voltage for a given thermal design power (TDP) constraint. Dennard scaling Dennard scaling, also kn ...
*
Integrated passive devices Integrated passive devices (IPDs), also known as integrated passive components (IPCs) or embedded passive components (EPC), are electronic components where resistors (R), capacitors (C), inductors (L)/coils/chokes, microstriplines, impedance matchi ...
*
High-temperature operating life High-temperature operating life (HTOL) is a reliability test applied to integrated circuits (ICs) to determine their intrinsic reliability. This test stresses the IC at an elevated temperature, high voltage and dynamic operation for a predefined p ...
* Thermal simulations for integrated circuits *
Heat generation in integrated circuits The heat dissipation All electronic devices and circuitry generate excess heat and thus require thermal management to improve reliability and prevent premature failure. The amount of heat output is equal to the power input, if there a ...


References


Further reading

* * * * * * *


External links

*
The first monolithic integrated circuits


including access to most of the datasheets for the parts.
The History of the Integrated Circuit

IC Die Photography
– A gallery of integrated circuit die photographs {{Authority control 1949 in computing 20th-century inventions American inventions Computer-related introductions in 1949 Digital electronics Discovery and invention controversies German inventions Semiconductor devices