[Semiconductor Glossary] Integrated Circuit (IC)

What is an integrated circuit?

 An integrated circuit (IC), sometimes referred to as a chip, microchip, or microelectronic circuit, is a nanoscale electronic component or system in which multiple electronic circuit elements are combined in a non-separable manner on a single circuit board or with the board itself. Transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and other complex electrical components are precisely manufactured to fit a circuit in a semiconductor. So instead of using one semiconductor per section, tens of thousands of them are aggregated and stacked on top of the silicone surface. They are "clustered and stacked", in other words, "integrated", which is why it is called an integrated circuit (IC). In 1958, an American engineer named Jack Kilby of TI invented the integrated circuit (IC). With the progress of technology, circuit integration in semiconductors has been developed into SSI, MSI, LSI, VLSI, ULSI, and so on. Integrated circuits can act as amplifiers, oscillators, timers, counters, logic gates, computer memory, microcontrollers, or microprocessors. Integrated circuits are the basic building blocks of all modern electronic devices. As the name suggests, it is an integrated system in which multiple tiny interconnected components are embedded in a thin substrate of semiconductor material, usually a silicon crystal.