How do Integrated Circuit Works ?

What is Integrated Circuit?

Integrated circuit (IC), sometimes called a chip or microchip, is a semiconductor wafer on which a thousand or millions of tiny resistors, capacitors, and transistors are fabricated. An IC can be a function as an amplifier, oscillator, timer, counter, computer memory, or microprocessor. An exact IC is categorized as either linear (analog) or digital depending on its future application. Integrated circuits distorted all that. The fundamental idea was to obtain a complete circuit, with lots of components and the connections between them, and reconstruct the whole thing in the microscopically tiny form on the surface of a piece of silicon. It was an incredibly clever idea and it’s made possible all kinds of “microelectronic”gadgets like digital watches and pocket calculators to Moon-landing rockets and arms with built-in satellite navigation.

Who invented ICs?

You've probably read in books that ICs were developed jointly by Jack Kilby(1923–2005) and Robert Noyce (1927–1990), as though these two men happily collaborated on their brilliant invention! In fact, Kilby and Noyce came up with the idea independently, at more or less exactly the same time, prompting a furious battle for the rights to the invention that was anything but happy.

Photo: Computer microchips like these—and all the appliances and gadgets that use them—owe their existence to Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce. Photo by Warren Gretz courtesy of US Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory (US DOE/NREL).

How could two people invent the same thing at exactly the same time? Easy: integrated circuits were an idea waiting to happen. By the mid-1950s, the world (and the military, in particular) had discovered the amazing potential of electronic computers and it was blindingly apparent to visionaries like Kilby and Noyce that there needed to be a better way of building and connecting transistors in large quantities. Kilby was working at Texas Instruments when he came upon the idea he called themonolithic principle: trying to build all the different parts of an electronic circuit on a silicon chip. On September 12, 1958, he hand-built the world's first, crude integrated circuit using a chip of germanium (a semiconducting element similar to silicon) and Texas Instruments applied for a patent on the idea the following year.

Meanwhile, at another company called Fairchild Semiconductor (formed by a small group of associates who had originally worked for the transistor pioneer William Shockley) the equally brilliant Robert Noyce was experimenting with miniature circuits of his own. In 1959, he used a series of photographic and chemical techniques known as the planar process (which had just been developed by a colleague, Jean Hoerni) to produce the first, practical, integrated circuit, a method that Fairchild then tried to patent.

There was considerable overlap between the two men's work and Texas Instruments and Fairchild battled in the courts for much of the 1960s over who had really developed the integrated circuit. Finally, in 1969, the companies agreed to share the idea.

Kilby and Noyce are now rightly regarded as joint-inventors of arguably the most important and far-reaching technology developed in the 20th century. Both men were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (Kilby in 1982, Noyce the following year) and Kilby's breakthrough was also recognized with the award of a half-share in the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 (as Kilby very generously noted in his acceptance speech, Noyce would surely have shared in the prize too had he not died of a heart attack a decade earlier).

While Kilby is remembered as a brilliant scientist, Noyce's legacy has an added dimension. In 1968, he co-founded the Intel Electronics company withGordon Moore (1929–), which went on to develop the microprocessor (single-chip computer) in 1974. With IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and other pioneering companies, Intel is credited with helping to bring affordable personal computers to our homes and workplaces. Thanks to Noyce and Kilby, and brilliant engineers who subsequently built on their work, there are now something like two billion computers in use throughout the world, many of them incorporated into cellphones, portable satellite navigation devices, and other electronic gadgets.

How Integrated Circuits are Made?

How do we build a memory or processor chip for a computer? It all starts with a raw compound element such as silicon, which is chemically treated or doped to create it have different electrical properties.

Doping Semiconductors

Conventionally, people thinks about equipment fitting into two neat categories: those that allow electricity to flow during them quite readily (conductors) and those that don’t (insulators). Metals make up most of the conductors, while nonmetals such as plastics, wood, and glass are the insulators. In fact, the effects are far additional complex than this, particularly when it comes to define elements in the center of the periodic table (in groups 14 and 15), notably silicon and germanium. Usually insulators, these elements can be prepared to perform more like conductors if we insert small quantities of impurities to them in a procedure known as doping.

If you add antimony to silicon, you provide it slightly extra electrons than it would usually include and the power to conduct electricity. Silicon “doped” that way is called n-type. Add boron instead of antimony and you take away some of silicon’s electrons, leaving behind “holes” that work as “negative electrons,” transport a positive electric current in the opposite way. That type of silicon is called p-type. Putting areas of n-type and p-type silicon side by side to create junctions where electrons act in very attractive ways and that’s how we generate electronic,semiconductor devices like diodes, transistors, and memories.

Types of Integrated Circuits

The different types of an integrated circuits which includes the following

Digital Integrated Circuits

This kind of IC has two defined levels; 1’s and 0’s that implies that they work on binary mathematics where 1 stands for on and 0 stands for off. Such ICs are accomplished of containing more than millions of flip flops, logic gates and what not, all incorporated onto a single chip. Examples of digital IC include microcontrollers and microprocessors

o        Logic ICs

o        Memory Chips,

o        Interface ICs (level shifters, serializer/de-serializer, etc.)

o        Power Management ICs

o        Programmable Devices

Analog Integrated Circuits

The analog integrated circuits works by tackling continuous signals and it is capable of performing tasks such as a filtering, amplification, demodulation and modulation etc. Sensors, OP-AMP’s are essentially Analog ICs.

o        Linear ICs

o        RF ICs

Mixed Signal

When the digital and analog ICs are used on a single chip; the resultant IC is known as mixed signal integrated circuits.

o        Data Acquisition ICs (including A/D converters, D/A converter, digital potentiometers)

o        Clock/timing ICs

Uses of Integrated Circuits

The integrated circuit uses a semiconductor material (read chips) as the working table and frequently silicon is selected for the task. Afterwards, electrical components such as diodes, transistors and resistors, etc. are added to this chip in minimized form. The silicon is known as a wafer in this assembly and then, electrical components are joined together in such a way they are able to carry out multiple tasks and calculations.

Applications of Integrated Circuits

The applications of an ICs includes the following

o        Radar

o        Wristwatches

o        Televisions

o        Juice Makers

o        PC

o        Video Processors

o        Audio Amplifiers

o        Memory Devices

o        Logic Devices

o        Radio Frequency Encoders and Decoders

In this article we are discussing about the brief introduction about the integrated circuit, what is an integrated circuit, how integrated circuits are made. Two types of methods we are using build the integrated circuits there is doping semiconductor, inside chip plant. We are also dealing the types of an integrated circuit like digital integrated circuits, analog integrated circuits and finally mixed signals with an example, uses of integrated circuit and applications of integrated circuits.

Furthermore, any queries regarding this concept or to implement the electrical and electronics projects, please give your valuable suggestions by commenting in the comment section below.

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