Introduction, advantages and scope of IC Fabrication

Introduction

Integrated electronics, generally referred as microelectronics, is the outcome of continuous research and improvements in the characteristics and miniaturizations employed in the fabrication of the solid state devices and components. Thus the integrated electronics can be considered as logical extension of the silicon device technology. Today the integrated electronics is used to realize complete circuits over a single semiconductor chip of silicon. Such circuits are commonly known as Integrated Circuits (ICs). The main semiconductor material utilized is silicon, but for special applications, gallium arsenide and other compound semiconductor materials may also be utilized.

Since the development of the first IC, the circuit design has become more and more sophisticated and the integrated circuit more complex. A single silicon chip may be of the order of one square centimeter, which encloses over a million transistors and other component. These components are not similar to the conventional component but the application of each component is similar to that discrete component of similar type. Intense research on silicon processing and increased automation in design and manufacturing have led the integrated circuits to the lower costs and higher fabrication yields.

There are lot of advantages of integrated circuits (ICs) over the circuits with discrete components which have made ICs very popular worldwide. The various advantages of the integrated circuits are as follows :

i) Practically size of an IC is thousands of times smaller than the discrete circuits, which increases the equipment density.

ii) Thousands of silicon wafers consisting individually millions of components, can be produced or manufactured simultaneously, known as mass production. Due to this, the cost of IC is very very low.

iii) As the number of components are fabricated on a single silicon wafer, which are not similar to the conventional one, the weight of IC reduces as compared to the discrete circuits with same number of components.

iv) ICs operate at low voltages. The power consumption of ICs is very low.

v) In ICs, soldered joints are absent and thus the high reliability of the system is the main feature of ICs.

vi) As power consumption is less, the temperature rise is also low which increases reliability, accuracy and life of the ICs.

vii) As number of components are fabricated on a same silicon wafer with same fabrication processes simultaneously, thus the matching of devices is excellent. 

viii) Effects of the parasitic capacitances are minimised in ICs, hence the operating speeds are higher.

The ICs are available with wide variety of characteristics and different types of packages with very complex circuits integrated.

Review Questions

1. State the advantages of integrated circuits over discrete components.

2. What are the new trends in Integrated circuit technologies and explain about its scope for future generation ?