60 years of integrated circuits
An integrated circuit is a semiconductor wafer on which thousands or millions of tiny resistors, capacitors, and transistors are fabricated. Sometimes called a chip or microchip. The invention of the integrated circuit made technologies of the Information Age feasible. ICs are now used extensively in all walks of life, from cars to toasters to amusement park rides. Integrated circuits (ICs) are self-contained circuits with many separate components such as transistors, diodes, resistors and capacitors etched into a tiny silicon chip.
Related Journals of Integrated circuit
Journal of Physical Chemistry & Biophysics, Journal of Electrical & Electronic Systems, Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium, IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, Journal of Integrated Circuits and Systems, Proceedings of the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.
On 12 September 1958, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments demonstrated a working integrated circuit1. The circuit was a phase-shift oscillator that used transistor, resistor and capacitor elements built from a single piece of germanium; the elements were connected into a circuit with the help of thin gold wires. A few months later, Robert Noyce, working at Fairchild Semiconductor, proposed a monolithic integrated circuit2. This planar design was based on silicon and used lines of aluminium, deposited on the insulating silicon dioxide layer that can form on the surface of silicon wafers, to connect the different circuit elements in the single chip. By 1960, a team of engineers at Fairchild Semiconductor had turned this design into a reality. Electronic components, which had previously been discrete units connected with individual wires, could now be integrated into the same piece of semiconducting material.
In the 60 years since Kilby’s initial demonstration, progress in STM8S207C8T6 has been astounding. Noyce would go on to co-found Intel, and just how far the company — and the design of integrated circuits — has come in that time is highlighted in this issue of Nature Electronics. In a News & Views article, Suman Datta of the University of Notre Dame reports on Intel’s 10-nanometre logic technology. With this latest design iteration3, the company has introduced a number of unconventional approaches to improve transistor density and performance, including a technique to reduce the spacing between cells and a method to add gate contacts directly over the active area. As a result, they can deliver around 100 million transistors per square millimetre — a transistor density that is 2.7 times higher than that of their previous 14-nm technology, which was introduced in 2014.
