Integrated circuit
part · 1958 · Digital age
Many transistors and connections on a single chip.
What it is made of
- Transistor — has part. A chip contains from dozens to billions of transistors.
- Chip package — has part. A hull.
Principles and materials it uses
- Silicon — is made of. The die of a chip is made of silicon.
- Photolithography — uses. The circuit pattern is transferred by light.
- Silicon wafer — is made of. Chips are made on wafers.
- Cleanroom — uses. Production in cleanrooms.
- Aluminium — is made of. For decades thin aluminium tracks on the chip connected a microchip's transistors.
- Copper — is made of. Since the late 1990s chip wiring has been copper: it conducts better than aluminium.
Where it is used
- Mainframe — is part of. The hybrid circuits of the System/360.
- Electronic calculator — is part of. A chip.
- Payment card — is part of. An EMV chip.
- Mobile phone — is part of. Inside a phone are microchips: processor, memory, radio.
What it is a kind of
- System on a chip (SoC) — includes. An SoC is a very complex integrated circuit.
- Microprocessor — includes. A processor on a single integrated circuit.
- Operational amplifier — includes. Made as an integrated circuit.
- Graphics processing unit — includes. A chip.
- Microcontroller — includes. A chip.
- FPGA — includes. A chip.
- ASIC — includes. A chip.