NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale which deals with structures with the size of nanometers and involves developing materials or devices within that size. It is also known as general-purpose technology as it has a significant impact on all areas of society.

Effects of Nanotechnology in future

Electrical power can be converted into motion, and vice-versa with 10 times efficiency and about 10 (100,000,000) times more compact. Computers can be 1012 times smaller and use 106 times less power. Motors can be built as small as 50nm wide. Thus, most human scale products would consist of negligible space which reduces weight, material requirements and cost.

Four Generations of NanoTechnology

1. Passive Nanostructures Dispersed and contact nanostructures Ex : Aerosols, colloids Products incorporating nanostructures Ex : Coatings, nanoparticle reinforced components, nanostructured metals, polymers, ceramics

Four Generations of Nanotechnology

2. Active Nanostructures Bio-active, health effects Ex : Targeted drugs, biodevices Physio-chemical active Ex : 3D Transistors, amplifiers, adapters, adaptive structures

Four Generations of Nanotechnology

3. Systems of nanostructures Ex: Guided assembly, 3D networking and new hierarchical architectures, robotics, evolutionary 4. Molecular Nanosystems Ex: Molecular devices by design, atomic design, emerging functions

Products of Nanotechnology
Self-replication is the process involved in making products using Nanotechnology. 1. Self-Assembly : The process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components form an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction.

Products of Nanotechnology
Types of Self- Assembly Static Self-Assembly : The ordered state occurs when the system is in equilibrium and does not dissipate energy. Dynamic Self-Assembly : The ordered state required dissipation of energy. Examples of Self-Assembly Systems : Weather patterns, solar systems, histogenesis, selfassembled monolayers.

Applications of Nanotechnology
With nanotechnology, a large set of materials and improved products rely on a change in the physical properties when the feature sizes are shrunk. 1. Medicine : (a) Diagnosis : Due to the small size of nano materials, the integration of nanomaterials with biology has led to the development of diagnostic devices, contrast agents, analytical tools, physical therapy applications and drug delivery vehicles.

Applications of Nanotechnology
(b) Drug Delivery : The overall drug consumption and side-effects can be lowered significantly by depositing the active agent in the morbid region only and in no higher dose than needed, which reduces both cost and human suffering. Cancer is treated with iron nanoparticles or gold shells.

Applications of Nanotechnology
(c) Tissue engineering : Nanotechnology can help to reproduce or repair damaged tissue. Tissue engineering uses artficially stimulated cell proliferation by using suitable nanomaterial-based scaffolds and growth factors. Advanced nanotechnology based tissue engineering can also lead to life extension.

Applications of Nanotechnology
2. Chemistry and environment : (a) Catalysis : Chemical catalysis benefits especially from nano particles, due to the large surface to volume ratio.The application potential in catalysis ranges from fuel cell to catalytic and photocatalytic devices. (b) Filtration : Magnetic nanoparticles offer an effective and reliable method to remove heavy metal contaminants from waste water by making use of magnetic separation techniques.

Applications of Nanotechnology
3. Energy : (a) Reduction of energy consumption : Nanotechnological approaches like lightemitting diodes (LEDs) or Quantum Caged Atoms (QCAs) lead to a strong reduction of energy consumption for illumination. (b) Increasing the efficiency of energy production : Nanotechnology increases the efficiency of light conversion by using nanostructures with a continuum of bandgaps.

Applications of Nanotechnology
(c) The use of more environmentally friendly energy systems : Nanotechnology helps in the reduction of combustion engine pollutants by nanoporous filters, which can clean the exhaust mechanically, by catalytic converters based on nanoscale noble metal particles or by catalytic coatings on cylinder walls and catalytic nanoparticles as additive for fuels. (d) Recycling of batteries : The use of batteries with higher energy content or the use of rechargeable batteries or supercapacitors with higher rate of recharging using nanomaterials is helpful for the battery disposal problem.

Applications of Nanotehcnology
4. Information and Communication: (a) Memory Storage : Reconfigurable interconnections between vertical and horizontal wiring arrays are used to create ultra high density memories. (b) Novel semiconductor devices : Novel devices are based on spintronics, which exploits the intrinsic spin of electrons and its associated magnetic moment.

Applications of Nanotechnology
(c) Novel optoelectronic devices : Photonic Crystals : These are materials with a periodic variation in the refractive index with a lattice constant that is half the wavelength of the light used. Quantum dots : These are nanoscaled objects used for the construction of lasers. (d) Displays : Production of displays with low energy consumption is done using carbon nanotubes which are electrically conductive with extremely high efficiency for field emission displays(FED). (e) Quantum computers : This has quantum bit memory space termed qubit for several computations at the same time.

Applications of Nanotechnology
5. Heavy Industry : (a) Aerospace : Nanotechnology helps to reduce the size of equipment and thereby decrease fuel-consumption required to get spacecraft airborne. (b) Construction : Automation of nanotechnology construction can allow for the creation of structures at much lower cost.

Applications of Nanotechnology
(c) Refineries : Using nanotech applications, refineries producing materials such as steel and aluminium will be able to remove any impurities in the materials they create. (d) Vehicle manufacturers : Lighter and stronger materials will be useful for creating vehicles that are both faster and safer.

Applications of Nanotechnology
6. Consumer Goods : (a) Foods : A nanocomposite coating process can improve food packaging by placing antimicrobial agents directly on the surface of the coated film. These can also improve the mechanical and heat-resistance properties and lower the oxygen transmission rate. (b) Household : Nanoceramic particles have improved the smoothness and heat resistance of common household equipment.

Applications of Nanotechnology
(c) Optics : Nanotechnology offers scratch resistant surface coatings based on nanocomposites which allow for an increase in precision of pupil repair and other types of laser eye surgery. (d) Textiles : Nanotechnology has been used to integrate tiny carbon particles membrane and guarantee full-surface protection from electrostatic charges for the wearer. (e) Cosmetics : A sunscreen based on mineral nanoparticles such as titanium dioxide has a comparable UV protection property as the bulk material, but lose the cosmetically undesirable whitening as the particle size is decreased.

Integrated Circuits
An integrated circuit is a miniaturized electronic circuit which consists of semiconductor devices as well as passive components that has been manufactured on the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material. An Integrated circuit is basically identified as a silicon chip.

Advantages of integrated circuits over discrete circuits

1. Cost : Its cost is low because all its components are printed as a unit of photolithography, but not constructed at a time. It also requires less consruction material. 2. Performance : Its performance is high because the components switch quickly and consume little power, because the components are small and close together.

Generations of Integrated circuits

1. SSI : The first integrated circuits contained only a few transistors, called Small-Scale Integration. 2. MSI : These integrated circuits contain hundreds of transistors on each chip, called Medium-Scale Integration.

Generations of Integrated circuits

3. LSI : These integrated circuits contain thousands of transistors on each chip, called Large-Scale Integration. 4. VLSI : This started with hundreds of thousands of transistors and continues beyond several billion transistors, called Very Large Scale Integration.

Classification of Integrated circuits

1. ANALOG ICs : These circuits work by processing continuous signals. These perform functions like amplification, active filtering, demodulation, mixing etc. Ex : Sensors, Operational Amplifiers, Power management circuits

Classification of Integrated Circuits

2. DIGITAL ICs : These circuits work using binary mathematics to process one and zero signals. Ex : Microprocessors, Microcontrollers, Digital Signal Processors. 3. MIXED ICs : These circuits combine Analog and Digital circuits on a single chip. Ex : A/D Converters, D/A Converters.

Applications of Integrated circuits

Modern computing, communications, manufacturing and transport systems, including the Internet depend on the existence of integrated circuits. Integrated circuits are used in almost all electronic equipment in use today and have revolutionized the world of electronics.

Basic Building Unit of Integrated Circuits

Semiconductors are the basic building blocks of Integrated circuits. SEMICONDUCTOR : A semiconductor is a material that has electrical conductivity between those of a conductor and an insulator. Current flow in semiconductors is either due to the flow of electrons or positively charged holes.

Classification of Semiconductors
1. INTRINSIC Semiconductors : These are pure semiconductors without any doping where the number of electrons and holes are equal. (a) Direct Gap Intrinsic Semiconductor : Maximum energy of the valence band occurs at the same space wave vector as the minimum energy of the conduction band. Ex : Gallium Arsenide

Classification of semiconductors
(b) Indirect Gap Intrinsic Semiconductors : The maximum energy of the valence occurs at a different space wave vector than the minimum energy of the conduction band in these semiconductors. Ex : Silicon, Germanium

Classification of Semiconductors
2. EXTRINSIC Semiconductors : These are semiconductors which have been doped. Doping : Doping involves adding dopant atoms to an intrinsic semiconductor at thermal equilibrium, which changes the electron and hole carrier concentrations. Doping carrier concentrations classify it as either an n-type or p-type semiconductors.

Types of Extrinsic Semiconductors

(a) N-Type Semiconductor : These are obtained using doping, by adding an impurity of valence-five elements to valence-four semiconductors in order to increase the number of free carrier electrons. As the fiveelectron atoms have an extra electron to donate, they are called donor atoms. Examples of Donor atoms : Phosphorus(P), Arsenic(As), Antimony(Sb)

Types of Extrinsic Semiconductors

(b) P-Type Semiconductors : These are obtained using doping, by adding an impurity of valencethree elements to a valence-four semiconductor to increase the number of free carrier holes. Acceptors : As the dopant atom accepts electrons from the neighbouring atoms covalent bond to complete the fourth bond, they are called acceptors. Ex : Boron(B), Aluminium(Al), Indium(In)

Semiconductor Devices
These are electronic devices that exploit the properties of semiconductor materials. Conductivity in semiconductors can be controlled by the introduction of an electric field, by exposure to light, heat and pressure, which make them excellent sensors. P-N Junction : The junction formed when ptype and n-type semiconductors join together is called p-n junction.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

This is a multiple-step sequence of photographic and chemical processing steps during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer made of pure semiconducting material. The entire manufacturing process from start to packaged chips for shipment takes six to eight weeks and is performed in highly specialized facilities called as fabs.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

1. Wafer Formation : The basic raw material used in semiconductors is a wafer or disk of silicon which currently varies from 75mm to 300mm in diameter and less than 1 mm thick. Wafers are cut from ingots of single-crystal silicon that have been pulled from a crucible melt of pure molten silicon. Controlled amounts of impurities are added to the melt to provide the crystal with the required electrical properties.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

2. Photolithography : This literally means carving pictures in stones using light. The wafer is coated with the photoresist on the areas of interest. A UV light source is used to expose the photoresist through a photomask constructed with chromium(chrome) covered quartz glass.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

Photolithography: A developer solvent is then used to dissolve the unexposed photoresist, leaving islands of insoluble exposed photoresist. A stepper moves the photomask, also known as reticle, to successive locations to completely expose the wafer. Using Resolution enhancement techniques and Off-axis illumination, the resolution can be extended to one-eighth the wavelength of the light.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

3. Well and Channel Formation : Various proportions of donor and acceptor impurities can be achieved using epitaxy, deposition or ion implantation. (a) Epitaxy : This involves growing a singlecrystal film on the silicon surface by subjecting the wafer surface to an elevated temperature and a source of dopant material.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

(b) Deposition : This involves placing dopant material onto the silicon surface and then driving it into the bulk by using a thermal diffusion step, which is used to build deep junctions. (c) Ion Implantation : This involves subjecting the silicon substrate to highly energized donor or acceptor atoms. These atoms travel below the surface of the silicon, forming regions with varying doping concentrations.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

4. Oxidation : Wet Oxidation : This is also called pyrogenic oxidation where a 2:1 mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is used between 900C and 1000C. Dry Oxidation : Here, the atmosphere is pure oxygen, at a temperature of 1200C. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) : A thin chemical layer(A) is attached to a surface and then a chemical(B) is introduced to produce a thin layer of the required layer(SiO2).

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

5. Isolation : Individual devices in a CMOS process must be isolated from one another in order to prevent unexpected interactions. The source and drain of transistors form reversebiased p-n junctions with the substrate or well, isolating them from their neighbors. Formation of any parasitic MOS channels are prevented by using a thin gate oxide for transistors and a much thicker field oxide elsewhere. The substrate in areas where transistors are not required can be further implanted with dopants to create a channel-stop diffusion.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

6. Formation of Gate Oxide : The oxide structure is called as gate stack, which consists of a few atomic layers of SiO2 for reliability, overlaid with a few layers of oxynitrided oxide The presence of nitrogen increases the dielectric constant, decreasing the effective oxide thickness, thus it performs as a thinner oxide. Thicker oxide improves the robustness of the process.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

7. Gate and Source/Drain Formation : Grow gate oxide wherever transistors are required or there will be thick oxide. Deposit polysilicon on chip. Pattern polysilicon (both gates and interconnect). Etch exposed gate oxide. Implant PMOS and NMOS source/drain regions.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

8. Contacts and Metallization : Contacts are holes etched in the dielectric at the end of source/drain. Aluminium(Al) is commonly used for wires but Tungsten(W) can be used as a plug to fill the contact holes. Metallization is the process of building wires to connect the devices. Aluminium is deposited either by evaporation or sputtering.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

Evaporation : This is performed by passing a high electrical current through a thick aluminium wire in a vacuum chamber. Sputtering : This is achieved by generating a gas plasma by ionizing an inert gas using an RF or DC field. Wet or dry etching can be used to remove unwanted metal. Plasma etch : This is a dry etch process with flourine or chlorine gas which charges the etch gas ions, which are attracted to the approximately charged silicon surface, which produces very sharp etch profiles.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

9. Passivation : This involves addition of a protective glass layer or overglass that prevents the ingress of contaminants. Openings in the passivation layer allow connection to I/O pads and test probe points if needed. Bumping allows the chip to be directly connected to a circuit board using plated solder bumps in the pad openings.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

10.Wafer Test : Equipment is used to verify that the wafers have not been damaged by previous processing steps up until testing. If the number of dies etched on a wafer exceeds a failure threshhold, the wafer is scrapped rather than investing in further processing.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

11. Device Test : The chips on the wafer are tested with an electronic tester that presses tiny probes against the chip, which marks each bad chip with a drop of dye. Chips are designed with testability features such as built in self test to speed testing and to reduce costs. The proportion of devices on the wafer found to perform properly is referred to as Yield.

Fabrication of Semiconductor devices

12. Packaging : Plastic or Ceramic Packaging : This involves mounting the die, connecting the die pads to the pins on the package, and sealing the die. Chip Scale Package (CSP) : Here, the die is mounted on an interposer upon which pads or balls are formed, or the pads may be etched or printed directly onto the silicon wafer, resulting in a package very close to the size of the silicon die, known as Wafer Level Package(WLP).

Types of semiconductor devices

1. Two-terminal Devices : DIODE : Avalanche diode Schottky diode Zener diode Tunnel diode Light-emitting diode Photo diode Varicap diode Laser diode

Types of semiconductor devices

2. Three-terminal devices : (a) Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) (b) Field Effect Transistor (FET) Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET) Metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT)

Types of semiconductor devices

(c) THYRISTOR : Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) Diode for Alternating Current (DIAC) Triode for Alternating Current (TRIAC) Gate turn-off thyristor (GTO) (d) Unijunction transistor

Types of semiconductor devices

4. 5. Four-terminal devices : Hall effect sensor Multi-terminal devices : Charge-coupled device (CCD) Microprocessor Random Access Memory (RAM) Read-only Memory (ROM)

Types of Semiconductor devices

1. DIODE : A p-n junction diode is a two terminal device which is made from a p-n junction. Depletion Region : This region is formed at the junction of p-type and n-type semiconductors, which blocks conduction from n-type region to p-type region, but allows conduction from p-type to n-type region.

Operation of Diode
Forward Bias : When the p-region of the diode is at a higher electric potential than the nregion , current flows through the device, thus the diode is forward biased. Reverse Bias : When the n-region of the diode is at a higher potential than the p-region, negligible current flows through the device, thus the diode is reverse biased.

Types of semiconductor Diodes

Breakdown Voltage : Breakdown voltage of a diode is the minimum reverse voltage to make the diode conduct in reverse direction. (a) Avalanche Diode : This diode conducts in reverse direction when the reverse bias voltage exceeds the breakdown voltage. (b) Schottky Diode : This is a diode with a low forward voltage drop and a very fast switching action.

Types of semiconductor Diodes

(c) Zener Diode : This diode permits current in the forward direction like a normal diode, but also in the reverse direction if the voltage is larger than the breakdown voltage known as Zener voltage. (d) Tunnel Diode : This is also known as Esaki diode which is capable of very fast operation, well into the microwave frequency region, by using quantum mechanical effects.

Types of semiconductor Diodes

(e) Light-emitting Diode : When this diode is forward biased, electrons are able to combine with holes and energy is released in the form of light. (f) Photodiode : This diode is a type of photodetector capable of converting light into either current or voltage, depending upon the mode of operation.

Types of semiconductor Diodes

(g) Varicap Diode : Varicap diode or Varacter diode is a type of diode which has variable capacitance that is a function of the voltage impressed on its terminals. (h) Laser Diode : When an LED like structure is contained in a resonant cavity formed by polishing the parallel end faces, a laser can be formed .

Applications of Diodes
Rectification : This is a process of converting alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) using rectifiers. Rectifier is an electrical device consisting of diodes in a specific arrangement. (a)Half-wave rectification : Either the positive half or the negative half of the AC wave is passed, while the other half is blocked. (b)Full-wave rectification : This converts both the polarities of the input waveform to direct current.

Applications of Diodes
Clipping : A diode clipping circuit can be used to limit the voltage swing of a signal. Clamping : DC reference for the output voltage in a circuit consisting of an openended capacitor is done by using a diode clamp. This circuit builds up average charge on the terminal that is sufficient to prevent the output from ever going negative and the positive charge on the terminal is trapped.

Applications of Diodes
Voltage Multiplier : This is an electrical circuit which converts AC electrical power from a lower voltage to a higher DC voltage by means of capacitors and diodes combined into a network. These are used to generate bias voltages of a few volts or millions of volts for purposes such as high-energy physics experiments and lightning safety testing.

Types of semiconductor devices

2. TRANSISTOR : A transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals. Bipolar junction transistors are formed from two p-n junctions, in either p-n-p or n-p-n configuration. The narrow region in the middle is known as the base. The other regions are known as emitter and collector.

Working of a Transistor
The essential usefulness of a transistor comes from its ability to use a small signal applied between one pair of its terminals to control a much larger signal at another pair of terminals. Transistor as a Switch : Transistor can be used to turn current on or off in a circuit like an electrically controlled switch, where the amount of current is determined by other circuit elements. Transistor as an Amplifier : Transistor controls its output in proportion to the input signal, thus acting as an amplifier.

Types of Transistors
Transistors are categorized by 1. Semiconductor material : Germanium, Silicon, Gallium Arsenide, Silicon Carbide. 2. Structure : BJT, JFET, MOSFET, IGBT (a) Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) : This is a three terminal device made of doped semiconductor material used for ampliflying or switching purposes. These are so named because their operation involves both electrons and holes.

Types of Transistors
(b) FET : This type of transistor relies on electric field to control the shape , thus the conductivity of a channel of one type of charge carrier in a semiconductor material. These are also known as unipolar transistors as only one type of carriers are involved in its operation. All FETs have a gate, drain and source terminal that are roughly similar to the base, collector and emitter of BJTs.

Types of Transistors
(c) JFET : This is the simplest form of Field Effect Transistor which is used an electronically-controlled switch or as a voltage controlled resistance. JFET is a long channel of semiconductor material, doped to contain an abundance of positive charge carriers or of negative charge carriers.

Types of Transistors
(d) MOSFET : Metal-oxide semiconductor fieldeffect transistor is a device used to amplify or switch electronic signals. Body Effect : This describes the change in the threshhold voltage by the change in the sourcebulk voltage. As the body influences the threshhold voltage when it is not tied to the source, it is called as back gate.

Types of Transistors
(e) IGBT : Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor is a three terminal power semiconductor device noted for high efficiency and fast switching. IGBT combines the single gate-drive characteristics of the MOSFETs with the high -current and low-saturation-voltage capability of bipolar transistors by combining an isolated gate FET for the control input, and a bipolar power transistor as a switch, in a single device.

Types of Transistors
3. Polarity : (a) NPN Transistor : This consists of a layer of P-doped semiconductor between two Ndoped layers. Here, electron mobility is higher than hole mobility, thus allowing greater currents and faster operation. An NPN transistor is on when its base is pulled high relative to the emitter.

Types of Transistors
(b) PNP Transistor : These transistors consist of a layer of N-doped semiconductor between two layers of P-doped material. A small current leaving the base in the common-emitter mode is amplified in the collector output. This transistor is on when the base is pulled low relative to the emitter. Here, hole mobility is higher than electron mobility.

Types of Transistors
4. (a) (b) (c) Maximum Power Rating : Low Medium High

5. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Maximum operating frequency : Low Medium High Radio frequency(RF) Microwave

Types of Transistors
6. Physical Packaging : Transistor packages are made of glass, metal, ceramic or plastic. (a) through hole metal : This refers to the mounting scheme used for electronic components that involves the use of pins on the components that are inserted into holes drilled in printed circuit boards and soldered to pads on the opposite side.

Types of Transistors
(b) through hole plastic (c) Surface mount : Surface mount Technology (SMT) is a method for constructing electronic circuits in which the components are mounted directly onto the surface of printed circuit boards. An SMT component is usually smaller than its through-hole component because it has smaller leads or no leads at all.

Types of Transistors
Advantages of SMT over other techniques : Smaller components. Higher number of components with more connections. Fewer holes to be drilled through abrasive boards. Simpler automated assembly. Components can be placed on both sides of the circuit board. Low cost and faster assembly.

Types of Transistors
Disadvantages of SMT over other techniques : Manufacturing processes are more sophisticated, raising the initial cost and time of setting up for production. Manual prototype assembly or component-level repair is more difficult due to small sizes and lead spacings of many SMDs. Cannot be used with breadboards due to requirement of a custom PCB for every prototype.

Types of Transistors
(i) Ball Grid Array (BGA) : This is a type of surface mount packaging with one face covered with pins in a grid pattern. Advantages : High density Heat conduction Disadvantages : Non compliant leads Expensive inspection

Types of Semiconductor devices

Thyristor : This is a solid-state semiconductor device with four layers of alternating N and P type material which act as bistable switches, conducting when their gate recieves a current pulse, and continue to conduct for as long as they are forward biased. Functional drawback of thyristor is that it conducts only in one direction.

Operation of Thyristor
Reverse Blocking Mode : Voltage is applied in the direction that would be blocked by a diode. Forward Blocking Mode : Voltage is applied in the direction that would cause a diode to conduct, but the thyristor has not yet been triggered into conduction. Forward Conducting Mode : The thyristor is triggered into conduction and will remain conducting until the forward current drops below a threshhold value known as holding current.

Applications of Thyristors
Zero Cross Operation : Used where high currents and voltages are involved, and are often used to control alternating currents, where the change of polarity of the current causes the device to automatically switch off. These are used as control elements for phase angle triggered controllers. These can be used as circuit breaker or crowbar to prevent failure in power supply from damaging downstream components.

Applications of Thyristors
HVDC electricity transmission : As thyristors can switch power on the scale of megawatts, they are used for high-voltage direct current conversion either to or from alternating current. Used as lighting dimmers and in photography. Snubber Circuits : High rate of rise of off-state voltage is prevented by connecting a resistorcapacitor (RC) snubber circuit between the anode and cathode terminals .

Types of Thyristors
Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) : This is a type of rectifier, controlled by a logic gate signal. It is a four-layer, three terminal device. Operation : In the off state, the device restricts current to the leakage current. When gate to cathode voltage exceeds a certain threshhold, the device is on as long as it is above holding current. When current falls below holding current, the device will switch off.

Types of Thyristors
Diode for Alternating Current (DIAC) : This is a bidirectional trigger diode that conducts current only after its breakdown voltage has been exceeded momentarily. These are also known as symmetrical trigger diodes due to the symmetry of the characteristic curve. These are used in control circuitry in AC circuits.

Types of Thyristors
Triode for Alternating Current (TRIAC) : This is an electronic component equivalent to two silicon controlled rectifiers joined in inverse parallel and with their gates connected together. This is also known as bidirectional diode transistor. Applications : Lower power TRIACs are used as light dimmers, speed controls for electric fans, motors and in household appliances.

Types of Thyristors
Gate Turn-off Thyristor (GTO) : This is a high power semiconductor device used as fully controllable switch which can be turned on and off by their Gate lead. These are used in variable speed motor drives, high power inverters and traction. When the forward current falls, there is a long tail time where residual current continues to flow until all remaining charge from the device is taken away, thus is suffers from long switch off times.

Types of Semiconductor devices

Hall Effect Sensor : This is an analogue transducer that varies its output voltage in response to changes in magnetic field. Transducer : This is a device that converts one type of energy or physical attribute to another for various purposes including measurement or information transfer. A Hall sensor is combined with circuitry that allows the device to act in a digital mode and acts as switch in this configuration.

Types of Semiconductor devices

Applications of Hall Effect Sensor : This can be used to measure current without interrupting the circuit. These are used in brushless DC electric motors to detect the position of the permanent magnet. These are used to time the speed of wheels and shafts in tachometers. These are used in pictured pneumatic cylinders and keyboards.

Types of Semiconductor devices

5. Multi-terminal devices : (a)Charge-coupled device (CCD) : This is an analog shift register that enables the transportation of analog signals through successive stages controlled by a clock signal. Applications : These are used in arrays of photoelectric light sensors to serialize parallel analog signals. These are used as a form of memory or for delaying samples of analog signals.

Types of Semiconductor devices

Operation of CCD : To capture images, there is a photoactive region (an epitaxial layer of silicon) and a transmission region made out of a shift register. An image is projected by a lens on the capacitor array causing each capacitor to accumulate an electric charge proportional to the light intensity at that location. A control circuit causes each capacitor to transfer its contents to its neighbor. By repeating this process, the entire semiconductor contents of the array are converted to a sequence of voltages, which it samples, digitizes and stores in the form of memory.

Types of semiconductor devices

(b)Microprocessor : This is a single integrated semiconductor chip which incorporates all the functions of a central processing unit (CPU). The integration of the whole CPU onto a single VLSI chip greatly reduced the cost of processing capacity. These are used as processing elements from the smallest embedded systems and handheld devices to the largest mainframes and supercomputers

Types of Semiconductor devices

(c)Random Access Memory (RAM) : This is a form of computer data storage that allows the stored data to be accessed in any order. Thus, any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of the physical location and whether or not it is related to the previous piece of data. This is a type of volatile memory where the information is lost after the power is switched off.

Types of semiconductor devices

(d)Read-only Memory (ROM) : This is a class of storage media used in computers and other electronic devices. This is a type of non-volatile memory where the data cannot be modified and the desired data is stored permanently. This is used to distribute firmware, a kind of software that is very closely tied to specific software, which does not require frequent updates.

Types of semiconductor devices

Erasable programmable Read Only Memory (EPROM) : This is a type of memory chip which retains its data when the power supply is switched off. Once programmed, EPROM can be erased only by exposure to strong ultraviolet light. Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM) : This is used to store small amounts of data that must be saved when power is off.

Types of Semiconductor devices

Flash Memory : This is a type of non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. This is a specific type of EEPROM that is erased and programmed in large blocks. Applications : This is primarily used in memory cards and USB flash drives for general storage and transfer of data between computers and other digital products. These offer fast read access times and better kinetic shock resistance than hard disks.

Conclusion
In the future, we will be able to snap together the fundamental building blocks of nature easily, inexpensively and in most of the ways permitted by the laws of physics, which will allow us to fabricate an entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter and more precise.