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 plate ("chip") of semiconductor material,
normally silicon. This can be made much smaller than a discrete circuit made from independent
electronic components. ICs can be made very compact, having up to several billion transistors
and other electronic components in an area the size of a fingernail. The width of each conducting
line in a circuit can be made smaller and smaller as the technology advances; in 2008 it dropped
below 100 nanometers,[1] and now is tens of nanometers.[2]
ICs were made possible by experimental discoveries showing that semiconductor devices could
perform the functions of vacuum tubes and by mid-20th-century technology advancements in
semiconductor device fabrication. The integration of large numbers of tiny transistors into a
small chip was an enormous improvement over the manual assembly of circuits using discrete
electronic components. The integrated circuit's mass production capability, reliability and
building-block approach to circuit design ensured the rapid adoption of standardized integrated
circuits in place of designs using discrete transistors.
ICs have two main advantages over discrete circuits: cost and performance. Cost is low because
the chips, with all their components, are printed as a unit by photolithography rather than being
constructed one transistor at a time. Furthermore, packaged ICs use much less material than
discrete circuits. Performance is high because the IC's components switch quickly and consume
little power (compared to their discrete counterparts) as a result of the small size and close
proximity of the components. As of 2012, typical chip areas range from a few square millimeters
to around 450 mm2, with up to 9 million transistors per mm2.
Integrated circuits are used in virtually all electronic equipment today and have revolutionized
the world of electronics. Computers, mobile phones, and other digital home appliances are now
inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the low cost of
integrated circuits.

Terminology
An integrated circuit is defined as:[3]
A circuit in which all or some of the circuit elements are inseparably associated and electrically
interconnected so that it is considered to be indivisible for the purposes of construction and
commerce.
Circuits meeting this definition can be constructed using many different technologies, including
thin-film transistor, thick film technology, or hybrid integrated circuit. However, in general
usage integrated circuit has come to refer to the single-piece circuit construction originally
known as a monolithic integrated circuit.[4][5]

Invention
Main article: Invention of the integrated circuit
Early developments of the integrated circuit go back to 1949, when German engineer Werner
Jacobi (Siemens AG)[6] filed a patent for an integrated-circuit-like semiconductor amplifying
device[7] showing five transistors on a common substrate in a 3-stage amplifier arrangement.
Jacobi disclosed small and cheap hearing aids as typical industrial applications of his patent. An
immediate commercial use of his patent has not been reported.
The idea of the integrated circuit was conceived by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer (19092002), a
radar scientist working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defence.
Dummer presented the idea to the public at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic
Components in Washington, D.C. on 7 May 1952.[8] He gave many symposia publicly to
propagate his ideas, and unsuccessfully attempted to build such a circuit in 1956.
A precursor idea to the IC was to create small ceramic squares (wafers), each containing a single
miniaturized component. Components could then be integrated and wired into a bidimensional or
tridimensional compact grid. This idea, which seemed very promising in 1957, was proposed to
the US Army by Jack Kilby and led to the short-lived Micromodule Program (similar to 1951's
Project Tinkertoy).[9] However, as the project was gaining momentum, Kilby came up with a
new, revolutionary design: the IC.

Jack Kilby's original integrated circuit

Newly employed by Texas Instruments, Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the integrated
circuit in July 1958, successfully demonstrating the first working integrated example on 12
September 1958.[10] In his patent application of 6 February 1959,[11] Kilby described his new
device as a body of semiconductor material wherein all the components of the electronic
circuit are completely integrated.[12] The first customer for the new invention was the US Air
Force.[13]
Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit.
[14]
His work was named an IEEE Milestone in 2009.[15]
Half a year after Kilby, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor developed his own idea of an
integrated circuit that solved many practical problems Kilby's had not. Noyce's design was made
of silicon, whereas Kilby's chip was made of germanium. Noyce credited Kurt Lehovec of

Sprague Electric for the principle of pn junction isolation caused by the action of a biased p
n junction (the diode) as a key concept behind the IC.[16]
Fairchild Semiconductor was also home of the first silicon-gate IC technology with self-aligned
gates, the basis of all modern CMOS computer chips. The technology was developed by Italian
physicist Federico Faggin in 1968, who later joined Intel in order to develop the very first singlechip Central Processing Unit (CPU) (Intel 4004), for which he received the National Medal of
Technology and Innovation in 2010.

Generations
In the early days of simple integrated circuits, the technology's large scale limited each chip to
only a few transistors, and the low degree of integration meant the design process was relatively
simple. Manufacturing yields were also quite low by today's standards. As the technology
progressed, millions, then billions[17] of transistors could be placed on one chip, and good designs
required thorough planning, giving rise to new design methods.
Name
SSI
MSI
LSI
VLSI
ULSI

Signification
small-scale integration
medium-scale integration
large-scale integration
very large-scale integration
ultra-scale integration

Year
1964
1968
1971
1980
1984

Transistors number[18]
1 to 10
10 to 500
500 to 20,000
20,000 to 1,000,000
1,000,000 and more

Logic gates number[19]

1 to 12
13 to 99
100 to 9,999
10,000 to 99,999
100,000 and more