M7

• Semiconductor

  • Have electrical properties intermediate between electrical conductors and insulators
  • The electrical characteristics are extremely sensitive to minute concentrations of impurity atoms, which may be controlled over small regions
  • Revolutionized the electronics and computer industries over the past 20 years
• Semiconductor

  • Unique electrical properties
  • Converts electrical signals to light
• Semiconductor materials

  • Silicon
  • GaAs
• Semiconductor applications

  • Integrated circuits
  • LEDs
• Early research in electrical and magnetic phenomena

  1600 to 1800
• Invention of the telephone

  1876
• Invention of the light bulb

  1880
• • Invention of the radio
  • The electron was identified

  1897
• Vacuum tube

  Dominated electronics
• Vacuum tubes today

  • TV picture tubes
  • Computer video monitors
  • High-power radio frequency (RF) transmitters
  • Microwave power tubes: magnetrons, klystrons, TWT
• First transistor (AT&T Bell Labs)

  1947
• First single-crystal Germanium

  1952
• First single-crystal Silicon

  1954
• First integrated circuit device (Texas Instruments)

  1958
• First IC product (Fairchild Camera)

  1961
• Transistor vs. Vacuum Tubes

  • Smaller
  • Lighter
  • Less power consumption
  • More rugged
  • Lower operating voltage
  • Less heat
  • Greater reliability
• Invention of first microprocessor (Intel)

  1971
• First commercial MPU: 8080 (Intel), 6800 (Motorola)

  1975
• First Personal Computers (Apple, Radio Shack)

  1977
• Personal Computer from IBM

  1981
• Trends in Semiconductors

  • Smaller transistors
  • More complex circuits per chip
  • Complete system on a chip
  • Declining cost of transistors
  • Higher operating frequencies
  • Higher switching speeds
• Moore's Law

  The number of transistors doubles every 12-18 months while the price remains unchanged
• Moore's Law is likely to be true until 2010
• Integration Level

  • Small Scale Integration (SSI): 2 - 50 devices per chip
  • Medium Scale Integration (MSI): 50 - 5K devices per chip
  • Large Scale Integration (LSI): 5K - 100K devices per chip
  • Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI): 100K - 10M devices per chip
  • Ultra Large Scale Integration (ULSI): 10M - 1B devices per chip
  • Super Large Scale Integration (SLSI): > 1B devices per chip
• The smallest known transistor was made by NEC in 1997
• 0.01 µm ≈ 30 silicon atoms, which is the limit of IC geometry and feature size
• The content of this presentation came from the presentation of Engr. Emmanuel C. Guevara for Material Science and Engineering