70 Years of Semiconductors

本文是电子设计's 70th Anniversary series.

What you’ll learn

• 70年前的半导体是什么。
• How semiconductor technology has changed over the years.

电子设计has been around a bit longer than I have worked in the industry—but not by much. Having lived through it, you might think I had a good handle on how the technology progressed. However, so much has happened over the years that’s been amazing even to me.

自1950年代真空管为国王以来，硅和锗晶体管就已经存在(Fig. 1)。There weremetal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs)in 1959, starting withP型MOS（PMO）和n-type MOS (NMOS)逻辑，最终complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)。

自60年代初以来，硅就一直是支柱，随着时间的流逝，锗撞了出去。在半导体方面，还有一些非常广泛的领域，包括数字，模拟和力量。光电子学也应该参与其中，但这是另一个讨论领域。

To give an idea of the growth of semiconductors over the years, just take a look at the number of transistors being packed into a single die:

• 1960: small-scale integration (SSI): < 100 transistors
• 1964: medium-scale integration (MSI): 100-1,000 transistors
• 1972: large-scale integration (LSI): 1,000-100,000 transistors
• 1980: very-large-scale integration VLSI): > 100,000 transistors
• 1989: ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI): over million transistors
• 2022: No acronym: NVIDIA Hopper H100 GPU, 80 billion transistors, 4-nm process

我已经无法追踪到哪一年，但是比整个世界上生产的晶体管更多的晶体管被​​包装成一个Nvidia Hopper(Fig. 2)。

模拟和力量方面的进展同样令人印象深刻。除晶体管外，我们还有类似的设备thyristors,silicon-controlled rectifiers, and三进取that build on the advances in semiconductor technology(Fig. 3)。

Integration and advanced semiconductor technology led to theFairchild µA741操作放大器（OP放大器）1968年(Fig. 4)。它简化了模拟系统设计，同时提供了灵活性和易于配置。OP放大器仍然是模拟设计师套件中的主要工具。

The release ofSignetics’ NE555计时器(Fig. 5)in 1972 was yet another stepping stone along the way to more powerful analog semiconductors. It changed the way engineers thought about timing. CMOS versions are still in use today.

Wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductors include silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). GaN started a bit late, around 1969. The first GaN metal semiconductor field-effect transistors (GaN MESFETs) were developed in 1993. A 1-kW dc-dc converter the size of a postage stamp is possible now because of GaN FETs. Applications like electric vehicles and cloud data centers are pushing the limits for WBG technology.

More Modern Movement

LEDs and optoelectronics are yet another semiconductor technology area that has seen rapid change. They drive computer displays rather than the CRTs and vacuum light bulbs that illuminated our lives of the past. Our fiber communication systems are lit by this technology.

半导体生产技术像苏bstrate, metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy, and molecular beam epitaxy have helped to deliver more compact, more powerful solutions. The demands on the production side have led to large foundries moving even large companies to being fabless suppliers.

同样，随着时间的推移，芯片包装也发生了根本性的变化。现在，混合不同的技术更为普遍，并且在模具级别发生了与各种体系结构，用于堆叠，包装和连接模具在同一包装中。

Keeping track of what has happened in the semiconductor market in the last few months keeps me busy and amazed to the point where I often forget how much has changed over the years. It’s taken an enormous effort to get where we are today, with many fantastic products and technologies requiring millions of people to deliver. We continue to move faster as the tools and infrastructure augment what individual designers and engineers can build. Where will we be in another 70 years?

Read more articles in电子设计's 70th Anniversary series.