3
FIT100
Integrated Circuits
Integrated circuits (ICs) are the power source of the information revolution
•When computers were made of discrete parts, wires of every transistor (3), capacitor (2), resistor (2), etc. had to be hand-connected
•Labor intensive, expensive, error prone, unreliable, cumbersome, …
•Integrated circuits solved that by 2 ideas
–Integration -- circuits built as a unit from like parts
–Photolithography -- printing process to make chips