Chapter 1: Introduction to IC Technology

. Introduction

 There are two types of electronic circuit based on their assembly:

 Discrete Circuits: has consisted of separately manufactured components (e.g. resistors,

capacitors, diodes, transistors, etc.) joined by wires or plated conductors on PCB. D.C

 Integrated Circuits(IC): has various components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes,

transistors etc. fabricated on a small semiconductor chip. IC,IC1

Why we need IC?, to overcome the following disadvantages of discrete circuits:

† It occupy large space

† Lack of reliability due to a lot of soldering points

† This led to the development of microelectronics in the late 1950s.

† Microelectronics is the branch of electronics engineering which deals with micro-circuits. A

micro-circuit is simply a miniature assembly of electronic components.

II. Evolution of IC

 IC evolution started with the vacuum tube in 1900. V.T

 First electronic vacuum diode was built in 1905. V.D

 In 1906, first electronic triode vacuum tube was built. T.V.T

 Then in 1947, BJT was invented. BJT

 1950 year for invention of JFET.JFET

 Then in 1961, IC technology 1st generation came into picture.

 vacuum tube : a sealed glass tube containing a near-vacuum which allows the free passage of
electric current.

 Vacuum diode is an electronic device that allows the electric current in one direction (cathode
to anode) and blocks the electric current in another direction

 A triode is an electronic amplifying vacuum tube consisting of three electrodes inside an

evacuated glass envelope: a heated filament or cathode, a grid, and a plate (anode).

Cont’d

 Small Scale Integration (SSI): in which 10 transistors were mounted on a chip. This technology is
used in logic gates and as well as Flip Flops.

 1966 was the year of 2nd generation of IC technology in which (100 – 1000) transistors were
mounted on a chip. This technology was utilized for fabrication of Multiplexers and Counter IC’s.

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  In 1971, the 3rd generation i.e. LSI (Large Scale Integration) technology was invented and this
technology increases the number of transistors from 1000 to 20,000 per chip. It was
implemented for the fabrication of 8-bit Microprocessor chip.

 Due to the advancement in semiconductor technology, the 4thgeneration i.e. VLSI(Very Large
Scale Integration) technology enables to increases the level of integration further and in year in
1980, (20,000 – 1,000,000) transistors were mounted on a single chip.

Cont’d

This technology was utilized for the fabrication of 16 and 32-bit Microprocessor’s chip.

 VLSI is not the last IC technology; it was dominated by ULSI technology in year in 1990. In the
year 1990, (1,000,000 – 10,000,000) transistors were mounted on single chip. It was utilized for
production of special processors.

 Now todays emerging technology is GLSI (Giant Large Scale Integration) was invented in the
year 2000. In this technology greater than 10,000,000 transistors can be mounted in a single
chip.

Summary of IC Technology Evolution

† 1900 - Vacuum tube

† 1905 - Diode vacuum tube

† 1906 - Triode Vacuum tube

† 1947 - Transistor (BJT)

† 1950 - JFET

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 Year Technology's Name No_ Transistors Fabricated Devices
Mounted/chip

1961 SSI (Small Scale Integration) 10 Logic Gates and Flip

Flops

1966 MSI (Medium Scale Integration) 100 - 1000 Multiplexers and

Counters

1971 LSI (Large Scale Integration) 1000 – 20,000 8-bit Microprocessor

(8085)

1980 VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) 20,000 – 16 and 32-bit

1,000,000 Microprocessor

1990 ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) 1,000,000 – Advanced processors

10,000,000

2000 GSI (Giant Scale Integration) > 10,000,000 Latest Technology

III. Advantage and Disadvantages of IC

Advantages of IC:

• Increased reliability due to lesser number of connections.

• Extremely small size due to the fabrication of various circuit elements in a single chip of semi-
conductor material.

• Lesser weight and space requirement due to miniaturized circuit.

• Low power requirements.

• Greater ability to operate at extreme values of temperature.

• Low cost because of simultaneous production of hundreds of alike circuits on a small

semiconductor wafer.

• The circuit lay out is greatly simplified because integrated circuits are constrained to use
minimum number of external connections.

Cont’d

Disadvantages of IC:

• If any component in an IC goes out of order, the whole IC has to be replaced by the new one.

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 • In an IC, it is neither convenient nor economical to fabricate capacitances exceeding 30 pF.
Therefore, for high values of capacitance, discrete components exterior to IC chip are
connected.

• It is not possible to fabricate inductors and transformers on the surface of semi-conductor chip.
Therefore, these components are connected exterior to the semi-conductor chip.

• It is not possible to produce high power ICs (greater than 10 W).

• There is a lack of flexibility in an IC i.e., it is generally not possible to modify the parameters
within which an integrated circuit will operate.

Cont’d

Applications Areas of IC:

 Analog and Digital electronic circuits

 Microprocessors

 Personal Computers

 Microcontrollers

 CD player

 Watches

 General system designs

 Everywhere

Cont’d

Moore’s Law

o Gordon Moore is “co-founder of Intel” and he is visionary.moore

o He made a prediction in 1965, that is most popularly known as Moore’s law.

o He states that: “The number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits will double
every 18 months.”

o As he said the number of transistors increase, simultaneously the processing power is also
increasing. This results performance of the system is going up and cost per unit of chip is falling
down with the increasing level of integration.

Cont’d

o In the coming future, with the Moore’s blessing & advancement in the field of semiconductor
technology, we can imagine that:

o We will have a car, which listen our voice and take it as a verbal command. It drives as to
spoken destination via feasible route as well as in a safe manner.

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 o We can have real time conversation with translation. (

o Highly sophisticated security system than we have now.

o Moore’s law is applicable for the following measures of S.C technology:

o Size: size is falling down (shrinking)

o Cost: cost is also falling down

o Density: density is increasing as transistor’s count is increasing

o Speed of performance: it is also increasing

Cont’d

o Moore is also known as “Exponential Inventor”:

In April 2005, he stated that:

“The projection can’t be sustained indefinitely: It can’t continue forever. The nature of exponentials is
that you push them out and eventually disaster happens” i.e. in the future, transistors would reach the
limits of miniaturization at atomic levels.

o As we are approaching the size of transistors as size of atoms which is a fundamental barrier, it
is becoming true that:

“Yet no exponential is forever, but we can delay forever.”

IV. Types of IC

 IC’s can be classified based on their chip size:

† SSI, MSI, LSI, VLSI, ULSI,GSI

 IC’s can be classified based on their Application:

† Linear IC and

† Digital IC

 IC’s can be classified based on their fabrication techniques used:

† Monolithic IC and

† Thin and Thick Film IC and

† Hybrid or Multi-chip IC

 A linear integrated circuit (linear IC) is a solid-state analog device characterized by a

theoretically infinite number of possible operating states. It operates over a continuous range of
input levels. In contrast, a digital IC has a finite number of discrete input and output states.

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  An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a
microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor
material, normally silicon.

Cont’d

Monolithic IC

o The word ‘monolithic’ comes from the Greek words ‘monos’ and ‘lithos’ which means ‘single’
and ’stone’.

o The single crystal refers to a single chip of silicon as the semiconductor material, on top of which
all the active and passive components needed are interconnected.

o This is the best mode of manufacturing IC’ as they can be made identical, and produces high
reliability.

o The cost factor is also low and can be manufactured in bulk in very less time.

Cont’d

Application Areas: in IC’s used for

 AM receivers

 TV circuits

 Computer circuits

 Voltage regulators

 Amplifiers

Cont’d

Limitations of Monolithic IC’s:

 They have low power rating (i.e. Not more than one watt).

 The isolation (gap) between the components inside the IC is poor.

 Components like inductor cannot be fabricated to the IC.

 The passive components that are fabricated inside the IC will be of small value. For higher values
they have to be connected externally to the IC pins.

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  It is difficult to make a circuit flexible for any kind of variation; a new set of masks is required.

Thin and Thick Film IC

o They are comparatively larger than monolithic IC’s and smaller than discrete circuits.

o They are used for high power application.

o Both thick and thin film IC’s have similar appearance, properties, and general characteristics, the
main difference between the two of them is the manner in which the film is deposited on to the
IC.

Thin Film IC

o Thin film is the term used to describe a technique for depositing passive circuit elements on an
insulating substrate with coating to a thickness of 0.0001 centimeter.

o They are fabricated by depositing films of conducting material on the surface of a glass or
ceramic base.

o The resistors are fabricated by controlling the width and thickness of the films and by using
different materials selected for their resistivity.

o For capacitors, a film of insulating oxide is sandwiched between two conducting films.

o A spiral form of film is deposited onto the IC to create an inductor.

o Mainly two methods are used for producing thin films.

o Vacuum evaporation method: in which vaporized material is deposited on a substrate

contained in a vacuum.

o Vacuum evaporation (including sublimation) is a PVD process where material from a thermal
vaporization source reaches the substrate without collision with gas molecules in the space
between the source and substrate. The trajectory of the vaporized material is "line-of-sight."

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 The vacuum evaporation technique is most suitable for deposition of highly reactive
materials, such as aluminum, that are difficult to work with in air.

 The method is clean and allows a better contact between the layer of deposited
material and the surface upon which it has been deposited.

 In addition, because evaporation beams travel in straight lines, very precise patterns
may be produced.

 Cathode sputtering method: in which atoms from a cathode made of the desired film
material are deposited on a substrate located between a cathode and an anode.

 Cont’d

 This process is also performed in a vacuum.

 A potential of 2 to 5 kilovolts is applied between the anode and cathode (source

material). This produces a glow discharge in the space between the electrodes.

 The rate at which atoms are sputtered off the source material depends on the number
of ions that strike it and the number of atoms ejected for each ion bombardment. The
ejected atoms are deposited uniformly over all objects within the chamber.

 When the sputtering cycle is completed, the vacuum in the chamber is released and the
wafers are removed.

 The masks are then removed from the wafers, leaving a deposit that forms the passive
elements of the circuit

 Cont’d

 Finely polished glass, glazed ceramic, and oxidized silicon have been used as substrate
materials for thin films.

 A number of materials, including ni chrome, a compound of silicon oxide and chromium

cermets, tantalum, and titanium, have been used for thin-film resistors. Nichrome is the
most widely used.

 The most commonly used dielectric materials are silicon monoxide and silicon dioxide.

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Thick Film IC

o They also called as printed thin film circuits.

o The desired circuit pattern is obtained on a ceramic substance by using a manufacturing process
called silk-screen printing technique.

o A thick film is a film of material with a thickness approximately 0.001 centimeter.

o The inks used for printing are usually materials that have resistive, conductive, or dielectric
properties.

o The screens are actually made of fine stainless steel wire mesh.

As compared to Monolithic; Thin and Thick Film IC’s have the following advantages:

 They have better tolerance

 They have better isolation between components, and

 They have greater flexibility in circuit design that further helps in providing high frequency
performance.

Drawbacks:

 They are costly in making

 They have higher dimensions than monolithic IC’s.

 They also cannot be used to fabricate active components which further increase the size. But,
Passive components like resisters and capacitors can be integrated.

Hybrid or Multi-chip IC

o As the name suggests, the circuit is fabricated by interconnecting a number of individual chips.

o The active components are diffused transistors or diodes. The passive components may be
group of diffused resistors or capacitors on a single chip, or they may be thin-film components.

o Interconnection between the individual chips is made by wiring process or a metallized pattern.

Application:

† For advanced analog circuits, e.g. High power audio amplifiers

o Advantages over monolithic IC’s:

† They have better performance

† They have good power rating

† They provide design flexibility

o Disadvantages:

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† Their process is too expensive for mass production, multi-chip techniques are quite economical
for small quantity production.

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