A Short Guide On Integrated Circuit

by Hybridtek LLC Hybrid Circuit Manufacturer & Designer in New Jers

Integrated circuit is often called as miniaturized electronic circuit that comprises several semiconductor devices as well as passive components bonded to substrate or circuit board.

Ceramic Circuit Board

The entire configuration is termed as a hybrid integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit. After years of experimental discoveries, the IC manufacturing took place. In the mid-20th century there came tremendous advancement in the semiconductor technology. The integrated circuits started developing in bulk which controlled the capability, reliability, and building-block approach to circuit design at the time of manufacturing. Due to this the IC manufacturing companies started using standardized ICs in place of designs using discrete transistors.

The discrete circuits were also extensively used before the IC came into existence. But if we compare the integrated circuits with the discrete circuits, the former is much advance and capable than the later. On broader perspective there are two main advantages of ICs over discrete circuits - first is the cost of the device and second is the performance. Cost of a component is favorable to the user only if it is low, thus IC manufacturing cost is definitely less than the Hybrid Integrated Circuit. The reason for this low cost is the printing of chips and all their components as a unit rather than being constructed on each transistor at a time. Now this is done by a process called as photolithography. Furthermore, here the construction material used is much less than used in constructing a discrete circuit. Due to these two reasons the cost gets lowered hugely while designing the ICs. Design for manufacturing an IC is so cost effective that people who start using it never look for other options.

Another major advantage of using Hybrid Integrated Circuit is its high performance. But what is the possible reason behind it? Well, the performance is so high because the components in the integrated circuit switch quickly and consume little power as compared to their discrete counterparts. Now the next question arises here is that how are these components switched so quickly and are energy efficient too. For that the reason is very simple - the components are small in size and they are placed at close proximity with their counterparts.

In the early days of IC manufacturing, when the technology was not that advance the scale used was of large size due to which only a few transistors could be placed on a chip. Later on, millions, and today around billions of transistors could be placed on one chip. That is why while designing the IC; thorough planning is done by the professionals. This method has greatly improved the design methods and encouraged the designers to develop new Ceramic Circuit Board every so often.