IC- expanded to Integrated Circuit is known by different names like chip, microchip or in its abbreviated form IC etc.

An integrated circuit (IC) is a small chip made of semiconductor material that houses an entire circuit. When compared to standard circuits, which are made up of independent circuit components, it is very small. The monolithic integrated circuit is the most common type of IC used on a large scale today.

ICs are forming the backbone of the electronics world, now used virtually in all electronic equipment and thus revolutionising the world of electronics. 

Discussion

History of IC

There are many theories about the history of integrated chips. However, among those theories developed by a German engineer Werner Jacobi in 1949 is significant. He filed for patent an integrated-circuit-like semiconductor that can be used as an amplifying device with the help of five transistors on a basis of common substrate along with three-stage configuration for amplifier. 

The transistor, invented in 1947 by William B. Shockley and his team at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s Bell Laboratories, is the origin of integrated circuits. Shockley’s team (John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain were part of the team) discovered that, under the right conditions, electrons would form a barrier at the surface of certain crystals, and they discovered that by manipulating this barrier, you can control the flow of electricity through the crystal.

Controlling electron flow through a crystal enabled the team to create a device capable of performing electrical operations previously performed by vacuum tubes, such as signal amplification. This device was given the name transistor, which is a combination of the words transfer and resistor.

Importance of IC

ICs have got an edge over the discrete circuits:

• Costs

The cost is significantly less due to the reason that the chips are printed as a unit with all of their components with the help of photolithography overlooking the factor of single transistor applicability at a time. In this case, furthermore, integrated circuits which are packaged use significantly less material compared to discrete circuits.

• Performance

Because of their small size and close proximity, the IC’s components can be switched quickly along with the factor that these are means of consuming little power. 

ICs – Different Designs

The integrated circuits are designed by using certain logic techniques and circuit designs. The electronics market is flooded with mainly three types of designs of ICs:

• Analog Design

When integrated chips are used as oscillators, filters, or regulators, the analogue design method is used to create the integrated chip. When power dissipation, gain, and resistance must be perfect, this design method is used.

• Digital Design

When used as computer memories (such as RAM and ROM), integrated circuits (ICs) and microprocessors are designed using the digital design method. It focuses on ensuring that circuit density and overall efficiency remain high. This method is used to create integrated circuits that work with binary input data such as 0 and 1.

• Mixed Design

The analogue and digital design principles are combined in the mixed design. Mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) serve as digital to analogue converters, analogue to digital converters (D/A and A/D converters), and clock/timing ICs.

Characteristics of ICs

• Manufacturing and Packaging

Semiconducting materials, such as silicon, are used to create integrated circuits. Because the integrated chip is too small and delicate to handle, it is bonded into a network of tiny gold and aluminium wires and cast into a flat block of plastic or ceramic. Metal pins on the outside of the block connect to wires inside. The solid block prevents the chip from overheating and keeps it cool.

• IC Dimensions

The integrated chip’s size ranges from 1 square mm to more than 200 mm.

• An IC’s integration

Integrated chips get their name from the fact that they combine multiple devices on a single chip. A microcontroller is an integrated circuit (IC) that combines a microprocessor, memory, and an interface into a single device.

Prevalent ICs in the market

• Logic Gates ICs

Logic gate integrated circuits (ICs) are combinational circuits that provide a logical output based on various input signals. It has two or three inputs but only one output.

• Timer ICs

A Timer IC is manufactured with precise timing cycles and a duty cycle of 100% or 50%.

• Operational Amplifiers

An OpAmp, or Operational Amplifier, is a voltage amplifier with a high gain and a single-ended output.

• Voltage Regulators

A voltage regulator IC produces a constant DC output regardless of changes in the DC input.

Conclusion

An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microcircuit, chip, or microchip, is a type of integrated circuit. The assembly is associated with microscopic electronic components such as transistors, diodes, capacitors, as well as resistors, along with their interconnections on a wafer regarding semiconducting material, typically silicon. Early integrated circuits (ICs) from the late 1950s were made up of about ten components on the 0.12 in. (3 mm) square chip. The microprocessor was born as a result of very-large-scale VLSI integration, which greatly enhanced circuit density. The first commercially applicable integrated circuit chip which is (Intel, 1974) contained 4,800 transistors; the Pentium (1993) incorporated 3.2 million, along with more than a billion of the same.