The first transistor was demonstrated on Dec. 23, 1947, at Bell Labs by William Shockley. This new invention consisting of P type and N type semiconductive materials (in this case germanium) has completely revolutionized electronics. Transistors quickly replaced vacuum tubes in almost all applications (most notably those in discrete logic). Today when we think of transistors the first thing that comes to mind is computers. Advances in transistor technology and manufacturing processes as well as new materials being used for the semiconductor matrix and wiring have led to smaller, faster, cheaper, lower power transistors. Some of the basic principles behind semiconductor behavior and the restrictions currently faced by modern transistors will be discussed in the following pages.
Transistors are composed of a P type (positively doped) and N type (negatively doped) semiconductor material. These P-N junctions are the heart of both BJTs (Bipolar Junction Transistors) and FETs (Field Effect Transistors). BJTs have a physical connection between they current controlling input (base) and the input and output (collector and emitter). This results in a trickle current into the base. FETs have a physical separation between the control (gate) and the input and output (drain and source).
BJT and FET transistors are used in virtually every electronic device requiring current regulation or amplification. They make it very easy to precisely control power to a device reliably and with much greater efficiency than other methods. Another common use of transistors is their role in discrete logic. First used in DTL (Diode Transistor Logic) transistors compact nature and high switching speeds lend themselves well to use in logic ICs. In ...
... middle of paper ...
...er clock speed operation than the G4 processor and will include all the latest fabrication developments when released. Processor core voltage for this chip will be as low as 1.2v allowing a higher transistor count with very low power dissipation. Pentium 4 core voltage is in the range of 1.55v.
Smaller, faster, cheaper...transistors aren't quite as boring as you thought huh?
Bibliography
1. IBM Copper Technoglogy http://www.chips.ibm.com/
2. AMD http://www.amd.com/
3. Intel Semiconductor Technology http://www.intel.com/
4. Motorola PowerPC Division http://www.motorola.com/
5. Transistor History 101 http://users.arczip.com/rmcgarra1/xstrhist.html
6. Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm
7. The Mac Address http://www.themacaddress.com/
8. Electromigration http://www.ifw-dresden.de/ifs/31/gfa/em_e.htm
One of HP's innovative efforts include innovations in their use of resources. One of these innovations is the development of the transparent transistor technology which utilizes low-cost and high-efficiency materials such as tin and zinc. With minimal environmental impact, these materials also allow HP for faster mobility of resources world-wide,...
The P4DC6 utilizes Dual Intel 603 Xeon CPU’s in speeds from 1.5 GHZ – 2.0 GHZ, and will allow higher speed processors at the BIOS through flash updates. The i860 chipset supports a 400MHZ system bus which is quad piped 100MHZ FSB that uses the dual channel 600/800 MHZ RDRAM (Rambus Dynamic Read Only Memory) with memory transfer rates as high as 3.2 GB/s. Due to the large power requirements and to ensure system stability, a 400W (min.) ATX12V power supply (with both 4-pin and 8-pin +12V power connecter) is required for operating the SUPER P4DC6 correctly. There are many main parts of the SUPER P4DC6 motherboard, but the 3 main parts discussed in this paper are the memory slots, chipset and integrated I/O ports.
Now I will give you some brief history of the evolution of electronics which will help you understand more about semiconductors and the silicon chip. In the early 1900’s before integrated circuits and silicon chips were invented, computers and radios were made with vacuum tubes. The vacuum tube was invented in 1906 by Dr.Lee DeForest.
[3] K. Mori; H. Yamada; S. Takizawa, “System on Chip Age”. VLSI Technology, Systems, and Applications. Proceedings of Technical Papers. 1993
In the modern world, we have many devices that help us with our daily lives. These devices include the cellular phone, the music player and many more but none of these devices would exist without the invention of the transistor. The transistor is essentially the most important device ever created. Not because of what it does but because of what size it is. The transistor is absolutely necessary for our day-to-day lives.
The transistor brought about the beginning of solid state electronics, which resulted in the silicon chip. The silicon chip enabled advancements in methods of data capture and processing, as well as information collection and sharing. The flow...
In 1947 with the invention of the transistor, the role of the interconnect has proven to be a critical component in the design and manufacture of integrated circuits1. Various metals and manufacturing techniques have been employed, from pure Aluminum to Tungsten plugs to the metal that is used in the High Volume Manufacture of integrated circuit today, Copper.
Semiconductors were being studied in laboratories as early as the 1830's. The materials were usually poor conductors if heated and often carried photoelectric properties. (Electrical production by shining light on the material.) Soon, this property of changing conductivity would become of vital importance to the world of electronics and communications. (Micron) Common semiconductors include silicon, zinc and germanium; however, silicon is by far the most widely implemented due to its abundance. Also, its reasonable speed, simple processing, and useful temperature range make it a good choice among other semiconductors. (Wikipedia - Semiconductor Device) This element has been used to make cast iron, bricks, and pottery, and glass, but it found a new technological purpose. Silicon is extracted from sand and altered using small amounts of impurities (more on that later) so the electrical current across the silicon can be regulated depending on the polarity of the electrical charge applied to it. Before semiconductors (1600's to 1800's), the vacuum tube dominated electronics. Radios, and even computers used vacuum tubes in their circuits. However, semiconductors in the form of transistors, replaced vacuum tubes because they were smaller, lighter, less power consuming, more durable, more reliable, and generated less heat. (Xiao) Semiconductors are now used in almost any electronic component imaginable.
The transistor was invented in 1947 but did not see widespread use in computers until the late 1950s. The transistor was far superior to the vacuum tube, allowing computers to become smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient and more reliable than their first-generation predecessors. Though the transistor still generated a great deal of heat that subjected the computer to damage, it was a vast improvement over the vacuum tube. Second-generation computers still relied on punched cards for input and printouts for output. Second-generation computers moved from cryptic binary machine language to symbolic, or assembly, languages, which allowed programmers to specify instructions in words. High-level programming languages were also being developed at this time, such as early versions of COBOL and FORTRAN. These were also the first computers that stored their instructions in their memory, which moved from a magnetic drum to magnetic core technology. The first computers of this generation were developed for the atomic energy
123. What is the ratio of the total width to that of the center layer for a transistor?
While creating, maintaining, and programming a quantum computer is challenging, quantum computers are able to yield results from computations that are too complex for classical computers.
Moor’s Law: The number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months. (Moore, 1965)
I was a part of science expo in my school where I came to witness a prototype of electric motor where electrical energy is converting into mechanical energy by passing current through an electric wire that would rotate around a permanent magnet. From there on, I developed an interest in physics and mathematics. However, the concepts of physics at school level were limited to basic electric circuitry and Newtonian mechanics. This basic interest led me to take up Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry as my major subjects in high school. I came across various advanced concepts such as semiconductor devices, amplifiers, logic gates, electricity & electromagnetism etc., of which Semiconductor devices and their wide range of applications fascina...
... extent represented within the Intel Itanium Processor, security, scalability, delivering reliability, massive resources, parallelism and a new memory model based on a sound microarchitectural foundation. Because of its efficiency and so tiny in size and independence of out-of-order logic, the most advanced generation Itanium processor delivers best performance without any thermal generation problems. This quality of Itanium makes it a simple but efficient and refined engine that helps in consistent long-term improvement in code execution by small advancement in software, ultimately reducing the importance for significant new improvements in hardware. Microprocessor hardware advancements are becoming more and more difficult as time is progressing and even Moore believes that the exponential upward curve in microprocessor hardware advancements will not go forever.
The computer has progressed in many ways, but the most important improvement is the speed and operating capabilities. It was only around 6 years ago when a 386 DX2 processor was the fastest and most powerful CPU in the market. This processor could do a plethora of small tasks and still not be working to hard. Around 2-3 years ago, the Pentium came out, paving the way for new and faster computers. Intel was the most proficient in this area and came out with a range of processors from 66 MHz-166 Mhz. These processors are also now starting to become obsolete. Todays computers come equipped with 400-600 Mhz processors that can multi-task at an alarming rate. Intel has just started the release phase of it’s new Pentium III-800MHz processor. Glenn Henry is