Lesson 1(micro)

 Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. Microelectronics, as the name suggests, is related

to the study and manufacture, or micro fabrication, of electronic components which are very
small (usually micrometer-scale or smaller, but not always). These devices are made from
semiconductors.
 Digital integrated circuits (ICs) consist mostly of transistors.
 Analog circuits commonly contain resistors and capacitors as well.
 Inductors are used in some high frequency analog circuits, but tend to occupy large chip area if
used at low frequencies; gyrators can replace them in many applications.
 Advantages of IC technology
* Compactness
* High speed
*Low power requirement
* Reliability
* Ease of maintenance
* Modular construction
 Limitations of IC technology
* Inductors impractical
* Mega-power impossible
*Component density
* MSI (medium-scale integration)
-there are 10 to 100 gates per chip
* LSI (large-scale integration)
there are 100 to 1000 gates per semiconductor chip
* VLSI (Very-large-scale integration)
devices have from 1,000 to 10,000 components per chip.
 IC memory
* RAM
Two kinds of RAM:
Dynamic RAM (DRAM) and static RAM (SRAM).
 A DRAM employs IC transistors and capacitors, and data is stored as charges on
the capacitors.
 An SRAM uses a circuit called a flip-flop to store the data. This gets rid of the
need for constant replenishing of charge, but the tradeoff is that SRAM Ics
require more elements to store a given amount of data.

 A memory that disappears when power is removed is called a volatile memory.

 If memory is retained when power is removed, it is nonvolatile.

* ROM

This permanent programming is known as firmware.

* EPROM (erasable programmable ROM)

 is an IC whose memory is of the read-only type
the usual process for erasure involves exposure to ultraviolet

*EEPROM, for electrically erasable programmable read-only memory

 COMPUTER
– An electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed computational and logical
operations at high speed and output the result of this operation.
 Classification of Computers:
* According to purpose
General Purpose
Special Purpose
* According to the type of technology
Mechanical
Electromechanical
Electronics
* MECHANICAL COMPUTERS
Mechanical or analog computers are devices used for the computation of mathematical
problems.
* ELECTROMECHANICAL COMPUTERS
They use electrical components to perform some of the calculations and to increase accuracy
* ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS
Mathematical process were solved by using electrical voltages only, applied to elements such as
amplifiers, summing networks, differentiating and integrating circuits.
 DIGITAL COMPUTER GENERATION
1st GENERATION
Uses vacuum tubes
Uses machine language
2nd GENERATION
Uses transistors
Uses symbolic machine languages or assembly languages
3rd GENERATION
Miniaturized circuits
4th GENERATION
Uses LSI and VLSI
 Programming Languages Types:
MACHINE LANGUAGE
The program is represented by 1’s and 0’s
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE
Uses abbreviation (OP codes) to represent instructions
HIGH-LEVEL LANGUAGE
Uses English-like language to write instructions
 SOFTWARES
CATEGORIES:
 SYSTEM SOFTWARE (Operating System)
 Collection of programs which are needed in the creation, preparation and
execution of the programs.
 USER SOFTWARE (Application Software)

Lesson 2(semi-conductor)

 Semi-conductor
a solid substance that has a conductivity between that of an insulator and that of most metals,
either due to the addition of an impurity or because of temperature effects.
 Range of Conduciveness
The semiconductors fall somewhere midway between conductors and insulators.
 1824 (John Jacob Berzelis)
First to isolate and identify silicon.
Remains little more than a scientific curiosity until the 1900s.
 1833 (Michael Faraday)
Discovers that electrical resistively decreases as temperature increases in silver sulfide.
This is the first investigation of a semiconductor.

 1873 (William Smith)

Discovers the photoconductivity of selenium and invents a selenium photometer.
 1874 (Ferdinand Braun)
The first semiconductor device was born.
 1927 (Sommerfeld and Bloch)
Applied quantum mechanics to solids, helping explain the conduction of electricity in
semiconductors.