Five Generations of IC Technology

What is Integrated Circuit & Silicon Wafer?    

An electronic circuit constructed on a silicon wafer is known as an integrated circuit (IC). It accomplishes the same duties as a bigger discrete-component circuit. Its main advantage is that hundreds or thousands of integrated circuits may be packed into a single wafer. At the same time, a batch of around a hundred wafers is made. As a result, it is substantially less expensive than traditional discrete-component circuits. It is also substantially smaller in size. Thousands, if not billions, of components can be found in a single integrated circuit. AMD's Ryzen CPU, for example, has 19 billion transistors.

An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microelectronic circuit, microchip, or chip, is a single-unit electronic assembly made up of miniaturised active devices (such as transistors and diodes) and passive devices (such as capacitors and resistors) and their interconnections on a thin semiconductor substrate (typically silicon). As a consequence, a compact monolithic "chip" is formed, which can be as small as a few square centimetres or as small as a few square millimetres. The size of the individual circuit components is usually tiny.

Generation of Integrated Circuit

The transistor was invented in 1947 by William B. Shockley and his colleagues at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Bell Laboratories, and integrated circuits were born. Shockley's team (which included John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain) discovered that under the correct conditions, electrons create a barrier at the surface of particular crystals, and that managing this barrier allowed them to regulate the flow of electricity through the crystal. The team was able to construct a device that could perform electrical functions formerly performed by vacuum tubes, such as signal amplification, by controlling electron flow via a crystal.

This device was given the term transistor, which is a combination of the words "transfer" and "resistor." Solid-state electronics is the study of ways for making electrical devices out of solid materials. Solid-state devices proven to be far more durable, easier to work with, more dependable, smaller, and cheaper than vacuum tubes. Engineers quickly discovered how to make additional electrical components like resistors and capacitors using the same ideas and materials. Because electrical components could now be produced so tiny, the most difficult aspect of a circuit was the wire connecting them.

There are five generations of IC technology.

 

The vacuum tube computers of Generation 1 were used in the 1940s and 1950s. They were enormous.

Generation 2 began in 1956 with the creation of the transistor and continued until the integrated circuit was invented. These computers were mostly found in nuclear power plants.

Generation 3 spanned the years 1964–1971 and began with the introduction of integrated circuits (ish). Integrated circuits were being used in computers, but microprocessors had not yet been designed.

Generation 4 should be recognisable. It began in 1972 with the creation of the microprocessor and ended around 2010. This was the era of the compact, speedy computer.

Generation 5 began in 2010 with the emergence of artificial intelligence and is now the current generation. The field is presently dominated by RGB.