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Some examples of semiconductors are silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, and elements near the so-called "metalloid staircase" on the periodic table. After silicon, gallium arsenide is the second-most common semiconductor and is used in laser diodes, solar cells, microwave-frequency integrated circuits, and others.
The semiconductor industry is widely recognized as a key driver and technology enabler for the whole electronics value chain. [16] Prior to the 1980s, the semiconductor industry was vertically integrated. Semiconductor companies both designed and manufactured chips in their own facilities.
A semiconductor device is an electronic component that relies on the electronic properties of a semiconductor material (primarily silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors) for its function. Its conductivity lies between conductors and insulators. Semiconductor devices have replaced vacuum tubes in
The term solid-state became popular at the beginning of the semiconductor era in the 1960s to distinguish this new technology. A semiconductor device works by controlling an electric current consisting of electrons or holes moving within a solid crystalline piece of semiconducting material such as silicon, while the thermionic vacuum tubes it replaced worked by controlling a current of ...
Integrated circuit design, semiconductor design, chip design or IC design, is a sub-field of electronics engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs.
Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (metal oxide semiconductor) chips were developed and then widely adopted, enabling complex semiconductor and telecommunications technologies.
A compound semiconductor is a semiconductor compound composed of chemical elements of at least two different species. These semiconductors form for example in periodic table groups 13–15 (old groups III–V), for example of elements from the Boron group (old group III, boron, aluminium, gallium, indium) and from group 15 (old group V, nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, bismuth).
The foundry model is a microelectronics engineering and manufacturing business model consisting of a semiconductor fabrication plant, or foundry, and an integrated circuit design operation, each belonging to separate companies or subsidiaries.