What is a Computer Chip?

A computer chip is a thin sheet of silicon material that is half the size of a fingernail. A chip is connected by hundreds of microcircuits, and the volume is very small. The chip is full of microcircuits that generate pulse current.

A chip, or silicon chip, is also called an integrated circuit. it is

The air competition from 1950 to 1960 was fierce. In order to do more in the limited space of the spacecraft, the United States requires that the equipment be small and small, so that more electronic equipment can be installed in a small space, thereby developing chips. Many manufacturers quickly took advantage of the small size of the chip and the low current consumption to further produce microcomputers and microcomputers.

Since the first tube computer was invented, in 1974, three American scientists, Bading, Shockley, and Bratan, invented the transistor. The earliest transistors were made of germanium semiconductors, and later silicon semiconductor transistors were used. It was around 1953 that transistors began to be used in computers.

Jack Gilby, an American who worked at Texas Instruments in 1958, proposed the idea of putting two transistors on a chip, and invented the first integrated circuit. With the advancement of technology, the scale of integrated circuits is getting larger and larger, and the functions are getting stronger and stronger.

Since the invention of the chip in 1958, the chip has developed very quickly, and continues to develop until now. Whenever a new automatic device or a more powerful computer appears, it is mostly due to the development of new and more powerful chips. Computer manufacturers have been working hard to make more powerful chips to increase the integration and speed of the chips.

Major development history

1. In 1971, Intel introduced the first microprocessor, the 4004 chip;

Significance: Beginning the course of human beings embedding intelligence in computers and inanimate devices, marking the beginning of computer chip technology taking off.

2. In 1974, Intel Corporation introduced the landmark processor, Intel 8080;

Features: It uses a complex instruction set and a 40-pin package. Its function is 10 times that of 8008, and it can execute 290,000 instructions per second.

3. In 1993, the Intel Pentium processor with milestone significance was officially released;

Significance: Announcing the entry of the personal computer into the multimedia age.

4. In 1998, Intel released the Pentium II Xeon processor;

Design: Xeon is mainly designed to run commercial software, Internet services, corporate data storage, data classification, database, electronics, and mechanical automation design.

5. In March 2003, Intel released a complete computer solution-Centrino mobile computing technology.

The substrate material of the chip is a lightly doped single crystal silicon layer having an n- or p-type. It plays two roles, one is as a physical medium for manufacturing integrated circuits on and inside it, and the other is as a part of the circuit itself. The semiconductor circuits and microtransistors that form the core of the chip are directly built on the single crystal by deposition or etching On the silicon surface.

The working speed of the chip is related to the length of the signal transmission path between the circuits in the chip. The shorter the path, the faster the speed, and vice versa. The operating time of the chip is measured in nanoseconds.

The tighter the circuits in the chip are squeezed together, the faster the chip works, and because more circuits are designed on the same area of silicon, the chip's function is stronger. In fact, the work done by the chip is done by the transistor. The code of the chip is expressed by two kinds of signals, namely the voltage signal code. It includes two states, which are called high-level and low-level states. These two signals can also be represented by numbers, that is, "1" for high-voltage signals and "0" for low-voltage signals ("1" And "0" is called "bit" (abbreviation for binary digits) in binary code). These two states are represented by two voltage domain values of VIH and HIL, and VIH> HIL. VIH is called a high logic valve and HIL is called a low logic valve. If the voltage V of a node satisfies the inequality V> HIL, the node is considered to be in a high state, and if V <VIH, it is in a low state. If the voltage V of a node satisfies the inequality HIL <V <VIH, the state is uncertain.

A series of electrical signals generated by the on and off of a transistor in a chip circuit is also called a signal flow. Signal streams can be used to represent numbers, letters, and various other codes ^[2]

To make hundreds of circuits on a thin silicon wafer of about 5 square millimeters requires very sophisticated production techniques. The components on the chip are measured in micrometers, and the precision of positioning is 1-2 mm. The chips are manufactured in ultra-clean plants using machines controlled by specialized computers. The chip needs to be observed with a high power microscope during the manufacturing process.

When manufacturing a chip, the components and circuit wires are placed on the surface and inside of the silicon wafer, forming 9-10 different levels. Pure cylindrical silicon crystals were generated in a vacuum, and then cut into 0.5 mm thick discs, and the surfaces of the discs were extremely smooth. Using a circuit design program stored in the computer's memory, a set of "photomasks" are made for each layer of the chip. This mask is a square glass. Photographic processing or electronic flow lithography is used to print the circuit pattern of each layer on each glass mask pattern, so the glass is only partially transparent. After the above wafers have been thoroughly cleaned, they are placed in a hot oxidation furnace to form a thin silicon dioxide insulating layer on the surface. It is then coated with a soft, light-sensitive plastic (called a photoresist or photoresist). A mask is placed over the wafer, and ultraviolet rays are irradiated on the wafer to harden the photoresist without mask protection. The photoresist and the thin layer of silicon dioxide underneath which are not exposed are etched away with acid, and the exposed silicon area is further processed.

Dopants are doped into silicon to form the n-type and p-type parts of the element by ion implantation to form the element on a silicon wafer. At this time, the upper part of the silicon wafer is an aluminum connection layer, and the two connection layers are separated by a silicon dioxide insulating layer. The aluminum connection layer is generated by an evaporation process and a mask determines its routing.

When the entire manufacturing process is complete, each chip is inspected using an electrical probe. The unqualified products will be eliminated, and other products will be tested under different temperature and environmental conditions after packaging, and will eventually become the factory chip.