The Amazing Shrinking Transistor The Benefits of Integrated Circuits
Richard Turton · 1996
Abstract The introduction of the semiconductor transistor revolutionized the computer industry and had far-reaching effects in many other areas. However, the massive reduction in both the size and cost of electronic devices was due to a further development, that of the integrated circuit. Without this, many of the applications which we now take for granted —pocket-sized calculators, personal computers, and the appearance of electronics in everything from washing machines to children’s toys—would not be possible. The scale of this advance is hard to imagine. Just over thirty years ago electrical circuits were composed of individual discrete devices, each measuring typically several millimetres across. Nowadays it is possible to place several million devices on to a thin slice of silicon about the size of a thumbnail. The sizes of the individual components are measured in microns, a unit of length equal to one thousandth of a millimetre. How is it possible to make such tiny circuits? And how much smaller can they be made before we encounter fundamental limitations? These are two of the questions we will address in this chapter, but first of all we need to ask a more basic question: what is an integrated circuit?