Chip, Semiconductor and Integrated Circuit Relationship

Today's technology has promoted the continuous development of electronic circuits. As a power engineer, you must have some understanding of various components, but do you really know what chips, semiconductors and integrated circuits are? Do you know the connections and differences between them?

1. What is a chip?

Chip, also known as microcircuit (MICrocircuit), microchip (MICROCHIP), integrated circuit (IC), refers to a silicon chip containing integrated circuits. It is small in size and is often part of a computer or other electronic equipment. Chip is the general name for semiconductor component products. It is the carrier of integrated circuit (IC, integrated circuit) and is divided into wafers. A silicon wafer is a small piece of silicon that contains an integrated circuit and is part of a computer or other electronic device.

2. What is a semiconductor?

Semiconductor refers to a material whose conductivity at room temperature is between that of a conductor and an insulator. For example, a diode is a device made of semiconductors. A semiconductor is a material whose conductivity can be controlled, ranging from an insulator to a conductor.

Whether from the perspective of technology or economic development, the importance of semiconductors is huge. The core units of most electronic products today, such as computers, mobile phones or digital recorders, are closely related to semiconductors. Common semiconductor materials include silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, etc., and silicon is the most influential one in commercial applications among various semiconductor materials.

Matter exists in various forms, such as solid, liquid, gas, plasma, etc. We usually refer to materials with poor electrical conductivity, such as coal, intraocular lens, amber, ceramics, etc., as insulators. Metals with relatively good conductivity such as gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, aluminum, etc. are called conductors. Materials between conductors and insulators can simply be called semiconductors.

3. What is an integrated circuit?

An integrated circuit is a miniature electronic device or component. Using a certain process, the transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors and other components and wiring required in a circuit are interconnected together, made on a small or several small semiconductor wafers or dielectric substrates, and then packaged in a tube shell , becoming a microstructure with required circuit functions; all components in it have structurally formed a whole, making electronic components a big step towards miniaturization, low power consumption, intelligence and high reliability. It is represented by the letters "IC" in circuits.

The inventors of integrated circuits are Jack Kilby (integrated circuits based on germanium (Ge)) and Robert Noyce (integrated circuits based on silicon (Si)). Most applications in today's semiconductor industry are silicon-based integrated circuits. Integrated circuit is a new type of semiconductor device developed in the late 1950s and 1960s. It is a small piece of silicon that integrates semiconductors, resistors, capacitors and other components required to form a circuit with certain functions and the connecting wires between them through semiconductor manufacturing processes such as oxidation, photolithography, diffusion, epitaxy, and aluminum evaporation. on-chip, and then solder the electronic device packaged in a tube. Its packaging shell comes in various forms such as round shell type, flat type or dual in-line type.

Integrated circuit technology includes chip manufacturing technology and design technology, which is mainly reflected in processing equipment, processing technology, packaging and testing, mass production and design innovation capabilities.

4. What is the difference between a chip and an integrated circuit?

The emphasis to be expressed is different.

A chip is a chip, which generally refers to the square piece that you can see with the naked eye and is covered with many little feet or the feet cannot be seen but are clearly square. However, chips also include a variety of chips, such as baseband, voltage conversion, etc. The processor puts more emphasis on function, which refers to the unit that performs processing, which can be said to be MCU, CPU, etc. The scope of integrated circuits is much wider. If you integrate some resistors, capacitors and diodes together, it is considered an integrated circuit. It may be an analog signal conversion chip or a logic control chip, but in general, this concept is more biased towards Low-level stuff.

Integrated circuits refer to active devices, passive components and their interconnections that make up a circuit and are fabricated together on a semiconductor substrate or an insulating substrate to form a structurally closely connected and internally related electronic circuit. It can be divided into three main branches: semiconductor integrated circuits, film integrated circuits, and hybrid integrated circuits. Chip is the general name for semiconductor component products. It is the carrier of integrated circuit (IC, integrated circuit) and is divided into wafers.

5. What is the relationship and difference between semiconductor integrated circuits and semiconductor chips?

Chip is an abbreviation for integrated circuit. In fact, the true meaning of the word chip refers to the slightly larger semiconductor chip inside the integrated circuit package, that is, the die. Strictly speaking, chips and integrated circuits are not interchangeable. Integrated circuits are manufactured through semiconductor technology, thin film technology and thick film technology. Any circuit that has a certain function miniaturized and put into a certain packaged circuit form can be called an integrated circuit. A semiconductor is a substance between a good conductor and a poor conductor (or insulator). Semiconductor integrated circuits include semiconductor chips and peripheral related circuits.

Semiconductor integrated circuit

Semiconductor integrated circuits are "integrated" on a single semiconductor chip by interconnecting active components such as transistors, diodes, and passive components such as resistors and capacitors according to a certain circuit to complete specific circuit or system functions.

semiconductor chip

A semiconductor device that can achieve a certain function is made by etching and wiring on the semiconductor sheet. Not just silicon chips, common ones include gallium arsenide (gallium arsenide is toxic, so don’t be curious about decomposing it on some inferior circuit boards), germanium and other semiconductor materials. Semiconductors are also trending like cars. In the 1970s, U.S. companies such as Intel dominated the dynamic random access memory (D-Ram) market. However, in the 1980s, when high-performance D-RAM was needed due to the emergence of mainframe computers, Japanese companies ranked among the best. Are the above mentioned chips, semiconductors and integrated circuits? I know the connections and differences between them, and I hope it can be a reference for everyone.