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The Circuitry Inside an IC
| These are Integrated Circuits. "A monolithic integrated circuit (also known as IC, microcircuit, microchip, silicon chip, or chip) is a miniaturized electronic circuit (consisting mainly of semiconductor devices, as well as passive components) that has been manufactured in the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material." Ref. 4
They don't look like much on the outside. The black case is a plastic package that protects the IC and allows it to be more easily connected to other componets or other ICs.
On the inside of the package, though, is the heart of the IC.
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Different Types of ICs.
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This is a 7404 Hex Inverter IC. It contains 6 separate NOT gate circuits. This pinout diagram shows which pins are the inputs to each NOT gate and which pins are the outputs. It also shows which pin needs to be connected to a power source and which pin needs to be connected to a ground in order for the gates to work.
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To get an idea of the actual circuitry inside the 7404 IC, lets look at the electrical circuit for one NOT gate. The picture to the right is an electrical diagram of ONE inverter circuit. The circuit contains 4 resistors, 2 diodes, and 3 transistors.
There are SIX SETS of these in a typical Inverter IC.
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The electrical circuitry of a NOT gate.
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| To learn More about the Electrical Components, Click each Picture for a link to Wikipedia.
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Resistors.
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Diodes.
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Transistors.
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| If we use "regular" sized components, you can see that a circuit board can fill up very fast. There can also be more problems with connections as a board fills up with more and more components. To increase the capacity of a circuit board and speed at which the componets function, we need to miniturized the components in such a way that increases the integrity of the connections and allows for more circuitry. |
The Leach Amplifier |
Who came up with the idea of placing ALL these components onto the SAME semiconductive substrate?
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