Dummer, a British scientist, first proposed the idea of integrated circuits. That was in 1952, at an electronic component meeting of the Royal Institute of Signal and Radar, he said, "With the advent of transistors and comprehensive research on semiconductors, it seems conceivable that the electronic equipment in the future will be a solid component without connecting wires." Of course, the term "integrated circuit" did not exist at that time. But the real invention of the integrated circuit was in the United States, and it was 1958 six years later (some people think it was 1959, and the specific reasons will be explained later).
1On September 2nd, 958, Kilby of TI invented the world's first integrated circuit, which is a phase-shifted oscillator, and integrated two transistors, two capacitors and eight resistors-* * *12. This invention was patented by 1959 on February 6, 65438+. 1959, Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor invented an integrated circuit based on silicon plane technology. 1959 On July 30th, Noyce applied for a patent for his invention, which was approved on April 26th 196 1. Although Noyce invented the integrated circuit and applied for a patent later than kilby, it has been approved before. The integrated circuit invented by Noyce is more suitable for mass production, so some people will disagree on who invented the integrated circuit first. In fact, kilby and Noyce are considered as the inventors of the same batch of integrated circuits. The problem is that 1958 and 1959 cannot be regarded as the same invention time, but must be one of them. I used to say 1958.
1968, Noyce, Moore and other Fairchild employees founded Intel. 197 1 year, the world's first CPU was born-4004 integrated with 2300 transistors, 8008 in the following year, and 8080 in the following year ... although the CPU was born in 190. That's August 198 12, 1. IBM introduced the computer model IBM5 150, which is the earliest PC. The CPU uses Intel's 8088 (invented in1979), the system uses Microsoft's DOS, and the memory 16K is one more. But you know, the then $65,438+$0.565 is different from the present $65,438+$0.565. At that time, money was real. According to today's price index, it is equivalent to 4000 dollars now. August, 2065, 438+065,438+0, exchange rate 6.3902,2502.
Early integrated circuits did not form an independent industry. Electronic system manufacturers use their own ic for their own products, only sell them to a small part of the market, and buy some from the market at the same time. Intel and AMD initiated a new era of integrated circuit industry. They only supply general IC to the market, do not use IC to produce products, and certainly will not buy IC from the market. This self-designed, self-manufactured, self-packaged, self-tested and finally sold IC product is called IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturing). Nevertheless, IDM has a strict definition: enterprises whose external IC sales exceed 25% of the total IC output value can be called IDM (such as Motorola, TI, Sony), and those who do not exceed it are called system manufacturers (such as IBM and HP). According to this definition, IDM does not mean that system products are not produced, and system manufacturers do not mean that IC is not produced. The only difference is how much IC they produce (or don't produce at all) is used for their own system products and how much is used for direct sales.
Later, some such companies appeared. They only designed integrated circuits, but they didn't produce them. We call it Fabless, and we call it a design company without a production line. After their design is completed, the manufacturing process is still handed over to IDM. IDM's production line not only produces its own IC, but also helps Fabless to produce. 1987 TSMC (TSMC integrated circuit manufacturing co., ltd.) was established, and SMIC(SMIC semiconductor manufacturing co., ltd.) was established in 2000. These companies have created a new model. They don't have their own products, designs or uses, but simply provide manufacturing services, which we call OEM. With the emergence of such companies, not only Fabless's design achievements have a natural destination, but IDM has also given some of its own manufacturing links to Foundry. As far as the foundry is concerned, sometimes it receives more production tasks from IDM than Fabless. What happened afterwards? Even the packaging test has its own family, forming an independent industry.
Looking at today's integrated circuit industry, there are three pillars: design industry, manufacturing industry and packaging and testing industry. Of course, there are many one-stop enterprises like IDM, but the share of system manufacturers in IC market is getting lower and lower. I said in the IC market), on the verge of extinction! (attention! I'm talking about the demise of market share. The company didn't go extinct, but they realized that this mode of producing chips for their own use was not cost-effective and changed. )