A microscope image of an integrated circuitdie used to controlLCDs. Thepinouts are the dark circles surrounding the integrated circuit.
Anintegrated circuit (IC), also known as amicrochip or simplychip, is a compact assembly ofelectronic circuits formed from variouselectronic components — such astransistors,resistors, andcapacitors — and their interconnections.[1] These components are fabricated onto a thin, flat piece ("chip") ofsemiconductor material, most commonlysilicon.[1] Integrated circuits are integral to a wide variety of electronic devices — includingcomputers,smartphones, andtelevisions — performing functions such as data processing, control, and storage. They have transformed the field ofelectronics by enabling device miniaturization, improving performance, and reducing cost.
Compared to assemblies built from discrete components, integrated circuits are orders of magnitude smaller, faster, more energy-efficient, and less expensive, allowing for a very hightransistor count.
Very-large-scale integration was made practical by technological advancements insemiconductor device fabrication. 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 transistors on chips of the same size – a modern chip may have many billions of transistors in an area the size of a human fingernail. These advances, roughly followingMoore's law, 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 three main advantages over circuits constructed out of discrete components: size, cost and performance. The size and cost is low because the chips, with all their components, are printed as a unit byphotolithography 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 initial cost of designing them and the enormous capital cost of factory construction. This high initial cost means ICs are only commercially viable whenhigh production volumes are anticipated.
Anintegrated circuit (IC) is formally defined as:[2]
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.
In its strict sense, the term refers to a single-piece circuit construction — originally called amonolithic integrated circuit — consisting of an entire circuit built on a single piece ofsilicon.[3][4] In general usage, the designation "integrated circuit" can also apply to circuits that do not meet this strict definition, and which may be constructed using various technologies such as3D IC,2.5D IC,MCM,thin-film transistors,thick-film technology, orhybrid integrated circuits. This distinction in terminology is often relevant in debates on whetherMoore's law remains applicable.
Jack Kilby’s original integrated circuit — the first in the world — made fromgermanium with gold-wire interconnects.
Robert Noyce invented the first monolithic integrated circuit in 1959. The chip was made fromsilicon.
A precursor concept to theIC was the development of small ceramic substrates, known asmicromodules,[5] each containing a single miniaturized electronic component. These modules could then be assembled and interconnected into a two- or three-dimensional compact grid. The idea, considered highly promising in 1957, was proposed to theU.S. Army byJack Kilby,[5] leading to the short-lived Micromodule Program (similar in spirit to 1951'sProject Tinkertoy).[5][6][7] However, as the project gained traction, Kilby devised a fundamentally new approach: the integrated circuit itself.
Newly employed byTexas Instruments, 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.[8] In his patent application of 6 February 1959,[9] Kilby described his new device as "a body of semiconductor material … wherein all the components of the electronic circuit are completely integrated".[10] The first customer for the new invention was theUS Air Force.[11] Kilby won the 2000Nobel Prize in physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit.[12]
However, Kilby's invention was not a true monolithic integrated circuit chip, as it relied on external gold-wire connections, making large-scale production impractical.[13] About six months later,Robert Noyce atFairchild Semiconductor developed the first practical monolithic IC chip.[14][13] The monolithic integrated circuit chip was enabled by the inventions of theplanar process byJean Hoerni and ofp–n junction isolation byKurt Lehovec. Hoerni's invention was built on Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick's work on surface protection and passivation by silicon dioxide masking and predeposition,[15][16][17] as well as Fuller, Ditzenberger's and others work on the diffusion of impurities into silicon.[18][19][20][21][22]
Unlike Kilby's germanium-based design, Noyce's version was fabricated fromsilicon using the planar process by his colleague Jean Hoerni, which allowed reliable on-chip aluminum interconnections. Modern IC chips are based on Noyce's monolithic design,[14][13] rather than Kilby's early prototype.
NASA's Apollo Program was the largest single consumer of integrated circuits between 1961 and 1965.[23]
The earliest experimental MOS IC to be fabricated was a 16-transistor chip built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein atRCA in 1962.[36]General Microelectronics later introduced the first commercial MOS integrated circuit in 1964,[37] a 120-transistorshift register developed by Robert Norman.[36] By 1964, MOS chips had reached highertransistor density and lower manufacturing costs thanbipolar chips. MOS chips further increased in complexity at a rate predicted byMoore's law, leading tolarge-scale integration (LSI) with hundreds oftransistors on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s.[38]
Following the development of theself-aligned gate (silicon-gate) MOSFET by Robert Kerwin,Donald Klein and John Sarace at Bell Labs in 1967,[39] the firstsilicon-gate MOS IC technology withself-aligned gates, the basis of all modernCMOS integrated circuits, was developed at Fairchild Semiconductor byFederico Faggin in 1968.[40] The application of MOS LSI chips tocomputing was the basis for the firstmicroprocessors, as engineers began recognizing that a completecomputer processor could be contained on a single MOS LSI chip. This led to the inventions of the microprocessor and themicrocontroller by the early 1970s.[38] During the early 1970s, MOS integrated circuit technology enabled thevery large-scale integration (VLSI) of more than 10,000 transistors on a single chip.[41]
At first, MOS-based computers only made sense when high density was required, such asaerospace andpocket calculators. Computers built entirely from TTL, such as the 1970Datapoint 2200, were much faster and more powerful than single-chip MOS microprocessors, such as the 1972Intel 8008, until the early 1980s.[25]
Advances in IC technology, primarilysmaller features and larger chips, have allowedthe number ofMOS 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.[42] 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 theswitching power consumption per transistor goes down, while thememory capacity andspeed go up, through the relationships defined byDennard scaling (MOSFET scaling).[43] 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 ofmicrons in the early 1970s to 10nanometers in 2017[44] with a corresponding million-fold increase in transistors per unit area. As of 2016, typical chip areas range from a few squaremillimeters to around 600 mm2, with up to 25 milliontransistors per mm2.[45]
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 devices, and the closely relatedactive-pixel sensors, are chips that are sensitive tolight. They have largely replacedphotographic film 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.[47]
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.[49]Photonic integrated circuits that use light such as Lightelligence's PACE (Photonic Arithmetic Computing Engine) also being developed, using the emerging field of physics known asphotonics.[50]
Integrated circuits are also being developed forsensor applications inmedical implants or otherbioelectronic devices.[51] Special sealing techniques have to be applied in such biogenic environments to avoidcorrosion orbiodegradation of the exposed semiconductor materials.[52]
As of 2018[update], the vast majority of all transistors areMOSFETs fabricated in a single layer on one side of a chip of silicon in a flat two-dimensionalplanar process. Researchers have produced prototypes of several promising alternatives, such as:
As it becomes more difficult to manufacture ever smaller transistors, companies are usingmulti-chip modules/chiplets,three-dimensional integrated circuits,package on package,High Bandwidth Memory andthrough-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 asadvanced packaging.[57] 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.[58][59][60][61][62] Alternatively, approaches such as3D NAND stack multiple layers on a single die. A technique has been demonstrated to include microfluidic cooling on integrated circuits, to improve cooling performance[63] as well as peltier thermoelectric coolers on solder bumps, or thermal solder bumps used exclusively for heat dissipation, used inflip-chip.[64][65]
Virtual detail of an integrated circuit through four layers of planarizedcopper interconnect, down to the polysilicon (pink), wells (greyish), and substrate (green)
The cost ofdesigning and developing a complex integrated circuit is quite high, normally in the multiple tens of millions of dollars.[66][67] Therefore, it only makes economic sense to produce integrated circuit products with high production volume, so thenon-recurring engineering (NRE) costs are spread across typically millions of production units.
Modern semiconductor chips have billions of components, and are far too complex to be designed by hand. Software tools to help the designer are essential.Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electroniccomputer-aided design (ECAD),[68] is a category ofsoftware tools for designingelectronic systems, including integrated circuits. The tools work together in adesign flow that engineers use to design, verify, and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Some of the latest EDA tools useartificial intelligence (AI) to help engineers save time and improve chip performance.
Integrated circuits can be broadly classified intoanalog,[69]digital[70] andmixed-signal,[71] consisting of analog and digital signaling on the same IC.
Among the most advanced integrated circuits are themicroprocessors or "cores", used in personal computers, cell-phones, etc. Several cores may be integrated together in a single IC or chip. Digitalmemory chips andapplication-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are examples of other families of integrated circuits.
In the 1980s,programmable logic devices 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 aslogic gates,adders andregisters. Programmability comes in various forms – devices that can beprogrammed only once, devices that can be erased and then re-programmedusing UV light, devices that can be (re)programmed usingflash memory, andfield-programmable gate arrays (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 atfrequencies up to 1GHz.[72]
ICs can combine analog and digital circuits on a chip to create functions such asanalog-to-digital converters anddigital-to-analog converters. 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-costCMOS processes as microprocessors. But since 1998, radio chips have been developed usingRF CMOS processes. Examples include Intel'sDECT cordless phone, or802.11 (Wi-Fi) chips created byAtheros and other companies.[73]
Rendering of a smallstandard cell with three metal layers (dielectric has been removed). The sand-colored structures are metalinterconnect, with the vertical pillars being contacts, typically plugs oftungsten. The reddish structures are polysilicon gates, and the solid at the bottom is thecrystalline silicon bulk.Schematic structure of aCMOS chip, as built in the early 2000s. The graphic shows LDD-MISFET's on an SOI substrate with five metallization layers and solder bump for flip-chip bonding. It also shows the section forFEOL (front-end of line),BEOL (back-end of line) and first parts of back-end process.
Semiconductor ICs are fabricated in aplanar process which includes three key process steps – photolithography, deposition (such aschemical vapor deposition), andetching. The main process steps are supplemented by doping and cleaning. More recent or high-performance ICs may instead usemulti-gateFinFET orGAAFET transistors instead of planar ones, starting at the 22 nm node (Intel) or 16/14 nm nodes.[74]
Mono-crystal siliconwafers are used in most applications (or for special applications, other semiconductors such asgallium arsenide are used). The wafer need not be entirely silicon.Photolithography is used to mark different areas of the substrate to bedoped or to have polysilicon, insulators or metal (typically aluminium or copper) tracks deposited on them.Dopants 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.
Capacitive structures, in form very much like theparallel conducting plates of a traditional electricalcapacitor, 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-chipresistors, though mostlogic 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.
Random-access memory (RAM) is the most regular type of integrated circuit; the highest-density ICs are therefore memories, although even amicroprocessor typically includes on-chip memory. (See the regular array structure at the bottom of the first image.[which?]) Although device structures are highly intricate—with feature widths that have been shrinking for decades—the material layers remain much thinner than the lateral dimensions of the devices. These layers are fabricated using a process analogous tophotolithography, but light in thevisible spectrum cannot be used for patterning, as its wavelengths are too large. Instead,ultraviolet (UV)photons of shorter wavelength are employed to expose each layer. Because the features are so small,electron microscopes are essential tools for aprocess engineer working onfabrication process debugging.
Each device is tested before packaging usingautomated test equipment (ATE), in a procedure known aswafer testing or wafer probing. The wafer is then cut into rectangular blocks, each known as adie. Each functional die (pluraldice,dies, ordie) is connected into a package usingaluminium (or gold)bond wires, which are attached bythermosonic bonding.[76]Thermosonic bonding, first introduced by A. Coucoulas, provided a reliable means of forming electrical connections between the die and the outside world. After packaging, devices undergo final testing on the same or similar ATE used during wafer probing. In addition,industrial CT scanning can be employed for inspection. Test cost can account for over 25% of total fabrication cost for low-cost products, but is relatively negligible for low-yielding, larger, or higher-cost devices.
As of 2022[update], afabrication facility (commonly known as asemiconductor fab) can cost over US$12 billion to construct.[77] The cost of a fabrication facility rises over time because of increased complexity of new products; this is known asRock's law. Such a facility features:
ICs can be manufactured either in-house byintegrated device manufacturers (IDMs) or using thefoundry model. IDMs are vertically integrated companies (likeIntel andSamsung) that design, manufacture and sell their own ICs, and may offer design and/or manufacturing (foundry) services to other companies (the latter often tofabless companies). In the foundry model, fabless companies (likeNvidia) only design and sell ICs and outsource all manufacturing topure play foundries such asTSMC. These foundries may offer IC design services.
A SovietMSInMOS chip made in 1977, part of a four-chipcalculator set designed in 1970.[78]
The earliest integrated circuits were packaged in ceramicflat packs, which continued to be used by themilitary for many years due to their reliability and compact size. Commercial packaging rapidly shifted to thedual in-line package (DIP) — first in ceramic, later inplastic, typically acresol–formaldehyde–novolac resin.
In the 1980s, thepin count ofVLSI circuits exceeded the practical limit of DIP packaging, leading to the adoption ofpin grid array (PGA) andleadless chip carrier (LCC) packages.Surface-mount technology (SMT) emerged in the early 1980s and gained popularity by the late 1980s, offering finer lead pitch and using leads formed as either gull-wing or J-lead. A common example is thesmall-outline integrated circuit (SOIC) package — which occupies about 30–50% less board area than an equivalent DIP and is typically 70% thinner — featuring gull-wing leads extending from its two long sides with a standard lead spacing of 0.050 inches.
Ball grid array (BGA) packaging has existed since the 1970s. Theflip-chip BGA (FCBGA), developed in the 1990s, enables much higher pin counts than most other package types. In an FCBGA, the die is mounted upside-down and connected to the package balls through a substrate similar to aprinted circuit board, rather than by bonding wires. This design allows an array ofinput/output (I/O) connections — called Area-I/O — to be distributed across the entire die instead of being limited to its edges. While BGA devices eliminate the need for a dedicated socket, they are significantly more difficult to replace if they fail.
Intel transitioned away from PGA toland grid array (LGA) and BGA beginning in 2004, with the last PGA socket released in 2014 for mobile platforms. As of 2018[update], AMD uses PGA packages on mainstream desktop processors,[79] BGA packages on mobile processors,[80] and high-end desktop and server microprocessors use LGA packages.[81]
Electrical signals leaving the die must pass through the material electrically connecting the die to the package, through the conductivetraces (paths) in the package, through the leads connecting the package to the conductive traces on theprinted circuit board. 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.
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 andserial number, and a four-digit date-code to identify when the chip was manufactured. Extremely smallsurface-mount technology parts often bear only a number used in a manufacturer'slookup table 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.
The possibility of copying by photographing each layer of an integrated circuit and preparingphotomasks 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 USSemiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 established intellectual property protection for photomasks used to produce integrated circuits.[82]
A diplomatic conference held at Washington, D.C., in 1989 adopted a Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Integrated Circuits,[83] also called the Washington Treaty or IPIC Treaty. The treaty is currently not in force, but was partially integrated into theTRIPS agreement.[84]
National laws protecting IC layout designs have been adopted in a number of countries, including Japan,[85] theEC,[86] 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. SeeBritish Leyland Motor Corp. v. Armstrong Patents Co.
Criticisms of inadequacy of the UK copyright approach as perceived by the USchip industry are summarized in further chip rights developments.[87]
Australia passed the Circuit Layouts Act of 1989 as asui generis form of chip protection.[88] Korea passed theAct Concerning the Layout-Design of Semiconductor Integrated Circuits in 1992.[89]
In the early days of simple integrated circuits, the technology's large scale limited each chip to only a fewtransistors, and the low degree of integration meant the design process was relatively simple.Manufacturing yields were also quite low by today's standards. Asmetal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology progressed, the size of individual transistors shrank rapidly. By the 1980s, millions ofMOS transistors could be placed on one chip,[90] and good designs required thorough planning, giving rise to the field ofelectronic design automation, or EDA.Some SSI and MSI chips, likediscrete transistors, are still mass-produced, both to maintain old equipment and build new devices that require only a few gates. The7400 series ofTTL chips, for example, has become ade facto standard and remains in production.
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 thePlessey SL201 or thePhilips 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 byIBM scientistRolf Landauer when describing the theoretical concept;[93] 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 earlyaerospace projects, and aerospace projects helped inspire development of the technology. Both theMinuteman missile andApollo program needed lightweight digital computers for their inertial guidance systems. Although theApollo Guidance Computer led and motivated integrated-circuit technology,[94] it was the Minuteman missile that forced it into mass-production. The Minuteman missile program and various otherUnited States Navy programs accounted for the total $4 million integrated circuit market in 1962, and by 1968, U.S. Government spending onspace anddefense 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 theindustrial market and eventually theconsumer market. The average price per integrated circuit dropped from $50 in 1962 to $2.33 in 1968.[95] Integrated circuits began to appear inconsumer products by the turn of the 1970s decade. A typical application wasFM inter-carrier sound processing in television receivers.
The first applicationMOS chips were small-scale integration (SSI) chips.[96] FollowingMohamed M. Atalla's proposal of theMOS integrated circuit chip in 1960,[97] the earliest experimental MOS chip to be fabricated was a 16-transistor chip built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein atRCA in 1962.[36] The first practical application of MOS SSI chips was forNASAsatellites.[96]
The next step in the development of integrated circuits introduced devices which contained hundreds of transistors on each chip, called "medium-scale integration" (MSI).
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.[101]
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 usingRubylith-tape or similar.[102] For large or complex ICs (such asmemories orprocessors), 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 andverify 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.
Upper interconnect layers on anIntel 80486DX2 microprocessor die
"Very-large-scale integration" (VLSI) is a development that started with hundreds of thousands of transistors in the early 1980s. As of 2023, maximumtransistor counts continue to grow beyond 5.3 trillion transistors per chip.
In 1986, one-megabitrandom-access memory (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.[104] The trend continues largely unabated, with chips introduced in 2007 containing tens of billions of memory transistors.[105]
To reflect the continuing increase in complexity, the termULSI ("ultra-large-scale integration") was introduced for chips containing more than one million transistors.[106]Wafer-scale integration (WSI) is a technique for creating very large integrated circuits by using an entire silicon wafer to fabricate a single "super-chip." By combining large size with reduced packaging, WSI offered the potential for significantly lower costs in certain applications, most notably massively parallel supercomputers. The term itself was derived fromVery-Large-Scale Integration (VLSI), which represented the state of the art at the time WSI was under development.[107][108]
Asystem-on-a-chip (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 (seePackaging).[109] Further, signal sources and destinations arephysically closer on die, reducing the length of wiring and thereforelatency,transmission power costs andwaste heat from communication between modules on the same chip. This has led to an exploration of so-calledNetwork-on-Chip (NoC) devices, which apply system-on-chip design methodologies to digital communication networks as opposed to traditionalbus architectures.
Athree-dimensional integrated circuit (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.[110]
To allow identification during production, mostsilicon 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 artistic additions, often created with great attention to detail, showcase the designers' creativity and add a touch of personality to otherwise utilitarian components. These are sometimes referred to aschip art, silicon art, silicon graffiti or silicon doodling.[111]
Intel 4004, generally regarded as the first commercially availablemicroprocessor, which led to the 8008, the famous8080 CPU, the 8086,8088 (used in the originalIBM PC), and the fully-backward compatible (with the 8088/8086)80286, 80386/i386,i486, etc.
TheMotorola 6800 series of computer-related chips, leading to the68000 and88000 series (the 68000 series was very successful and was used in the Apple Lisa and pre-PowerPC-based Macintosh, CommodoreAmiga, Atari ST/TT/Falcon030, and NeXT families of computers, along with many models of workstations and servers from many manufacturers in the 80s, along with many other systems and devices)
^Wylie, Andrew (2009)."The first monolithic integrated circuits". Archived fromthe original on 4 May 2018. Retrieved14 March 2011.Nowadays when people say 'integrated circuit' they usually mean a monolithic IC, where the entire circuit is constructed in a single piece of silicon.
^Horowitz, Paul;Hill, Winfield (1989).The Art of Electronics (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 61.ISBN978-0-521-37095-0.Integrated circuits, which have largely replaced circuits constructed from discrete transistors, are themselves merely arrays of transistors and other components built from a single chip of semiconductor material.
^Fujita, H. (1997).A decade of MEMS and its future. Tenth Annual International Workshop on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems.doi:10.1109/MEMSYS.1997.581729.
^Gray, Paul R.; Hurst, Paul J.; Lewis, Stephen H.; Meyer, Robert G. (2009).Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits. Wiley.ISBN978-0-470-24599-6.
^On 1 January 1995, theAgreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) (Annex 1C to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement), went into force. Part II, section 6 of TRIPs protects semiconductor chip products and was the basis for Presidential Proclamation No. 6780, 23 March 1995, under SCPA § 902(a)(2), extending protection to all present and future WTO members.
^Japan was the first country to enact its own version of the SCPA, the Japanese "Act Concerning the Circuit Layout of a Semiconductor Integrated Circuit" of 1985.
^In 1986 the EC promulgated a directive requiring its members to adopt national legislation for the protection of semiconductor topographies. Council Directive 1987/54/EEC of 16 December 1986 on theLegal Protection of Topographies of Semiconductor Products, art. 1(1)(b), 1987 O.J. (L 24) 36.
^"Engineering for Systems Using Large Scale Integration".International Workshop on Managing Requirements Knowledge, Dec. 9 1968 to Dec. 11 1968, San Francisco. IEEE Computer Society. p. 867.doi:10.1109/AFIPS.1968.93.
^Topol, A.W.; Tulipe, D.C.La; Shi, L; et., al (2006). "Three-dimensional integrated circuits".IBM Journal of Research and Development.50 (4.5):491–506.doi:10.1147/rd.504.0491.S2CID18432328.
Hodges, David; Jackson, Horace; Saleh, Resve (2003).Analysis and Design of Digital Integrated Circuits. McGraw-Hill.ISBN978-0-07-228365-5.OCLC840380650.
It is relatively common to find packages that contain other components than their designated ones, such as diodes orvoltage regulators in transistor packages, etc.
.jpg)
.svg)
