An integrated circuit, also known as a microchip, chip or IC, is a small electronic device made up of multiple interconnected electronic components such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors. These components are etched onto a small piece of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Integrated circuits are used in a wide range of electronic devices, including computers, smartphones, and televisions, to perform various functions such as processing and storing information. They have greatly impacted the field of electronics by enabling device miniaturization and enhanced functionality.
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material, usually with at least three terminals for connection to an electronic circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Some transistors are packaged individually, but many more in miniature form are found embedded in integrated circuits. Because transistors are the key active components in practically all modern electronics, many people consider them one of the 20th century's greatest inventions.
A bipolar junction transistor (BJT) is a type of transistor that uses both electrons and electron holes as charge carriers. In contrast, a unipolar transistor, such as a field-effect transistor (FET), uses only one kind of charge carrier. A bipolar transistor allows a small current injected at one of its terminals to control a much larger current flowing between the terminals, making the device capable of amplification or switching.
Herbert Kroemer was a German-American physicist who, along with Zhores Alferov, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for "developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics". Kroemer was professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, having received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1952 from the University of Göttingen, Germany, with a dissertation on hot electron effects in the then-new transistor. His research into transistors was a stepping stone to the later development of mobile phone technologies.
James M. Early was an American electrical engineer, best known for his work on transistors and charge-coupled device imagers. He was also known as Jim Early.
A diffused junction transistor is a transistor formed by diffusing dopants into a semiconductor substrate. The diffusion process was developed later than the alloy-junction and grown junction processes for making bipolar junction transistors (BJTs).
Chih-Tang "Tom" Sah is a Chinese-American electronics engineer and condensed matter physicist. He is best known for inventing CMOS logic with Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1963. CMOS is used in nearly all modern very large-scale integration (VLSI) semiconductor devices.
Siegfried K. Wiedmann is a German electrical engineer noted for his contributions to semiconductor technologies for integrated circuits.
Asad Ali Abidi is a Pakistani-American electrical engineer. He serves as a tenured professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and is the inaugural holder of the Abdus Salam Chair at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He is best known for pioneering RF CMOS technology during the late 1980s to early 1990s. As of 2008, the radio transceivers in all wireless networking devices and modern mobile phones are mass-produced as RF CMOS devices.
Sir Christopher Maxwell Snowden, is a British electronic engineer and academic. He was the former Vice-Chancellor of Surrey University (2005–2015), and of the University of Southampton (2015–2019). He was president of Universities UK for a two-year term until 31 July 2015. He is currently the chairman of the ERA Foundation.
Mau-Chung Frank Chang is Distinguished Professor and the Chairman of Electrical Engineering department at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he conducts research and teaching on RF CMOS design, high speed integrated circuit design, data converter, and mixed-signal circuit designs. He is the Director of the UCLA High Speed Electronics Laboratory.
Bantval Jayant Baliga is an Indian electrical engineer best known for his work in power semiconductor devices, and particularly the invention of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT).
Lawrence Joseph Giacoletto was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He was known among others for his work in the field of semiconductor circuit technology, in particular by the eponymous Giacoletto equivalent circuit for transistors.
Dawon Kahng was a Korean-American electrical engineer and inventor, known for his work in solid-state electronics. He is best known for inventing the MOSFET, along with his colleague Mohamed Atalla, in 1959. Kahng and Atalla developed both the PMOS and NMOS processes for MOSFET semiconductor device fabrication. The MOSFET is the most widely used type of transistor, and the basic element in most modern electronic equipment.
James F. Gibbons is an American electrical engineer and academic administrator. He is credited with starting the semiconductor device fabrication laboratory at Stanford University that enabled the semiconductor industry and created Silicon Valley.
Dr. Gary Patton is an American technologist and business executive. He is currently the Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Design Enablement and Components Research in the Technology Development Group at Intel. He has spent most of his career in IBM, starting in IBM's Research Division and holding management and executive positions in IBM's Microelectronics Division in Technology Development, Design Enablement, Manufacturing, and Business Line Management.
RF CMOS is a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) technology that integrates radio-frequency (RF), analog and digital electronics on a mixed-signal CMOS RF circuit chip. It is widely used in modern wireless telecommunications, such as cellular networks, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS receivers, broadcasting, vehicular communication systems, and the radio transceivers in all modern mobile phones and wireless networking devices. RF CMOS technology was pioneered by Pakistani engineer Asad Ali Abidi at UCLA during the late 1980s to early 1990s, and helped bring about the wireless revolution with the introduction of digital signal processing in wireless communications. The development and design of RF CMOS devices was enabled by van der Ziel's FET RF noise model, which was published in the early 1960s and remained largely forgotten until the 1990s.
Sandip Tiwari is an Indian-born electrical engineer and applied physicist. He is the Charles N. Mellowes Professor of Engineering at Cornell University. His previous roles were Director of National Nanotechnology Users Network, Director of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, and research scientist at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. He is best known for his pioneer research in the fields of SiGe transistor and nanocrystal memory.
Paul Richman is an American semiconductor physicist and author.
