After the invention and mass production of transistors, various solid-state semiconductor components such as diodes and transistors have been widely used, replacing the functions and functions of vacuum tubes in circuits. In the middle and late 20th century, the progress of semiconductor manufacturing technology made integrated circuits possible.
Compared with the manual assembly of circuits with a single discrete electronic component, integrated circuits can integrate a large number of micro-transistors into a small chip, which is a great progress. The large-scale production capacity and reliability of integrated circuits, as well as the modular method of circuit design, ensure that standardized integrated circuits are quickly adopted instead of discrete transistors.
Classification:
There are many classification methods for integrated circuits. According to whether the circuit is analog or digital, it can be divided into: analog integrated circuit, digital integrated circuit and mixed-signal integrated circuit (analog and digital are on one chip).
Digital integrated circuits can contain anything from thousands to millions of logic gates, flip-flops, multiplexers and other circuits of several square millimeters. Compared with board-level integration, the small size of these circuits makes them have higher speed, lower power consumption (see low power design) and lower manufacturing cost.