Why did semiconductors spread well?
Reasons why semiconductors spread
The IT industry is now one of the largest in the world, and we have received many benefits, including the Internet. It is no exaggeration to say that supporting the IT industry in terms of hardware is the spread of semiconductors. This time, we will investigate why semiconductors have spread to this point.
You can control the flow of electricity
The greatest feature of semiconductors is that they can control the flow of electricity.
Among the elements, there are three types of conductors: a conductor through which electricity flows, an insulator that does not flow, and a semiconductor that flows delicately. When impurities are mixed into this semiconductor, the electrical properties change. Using this, a semiconductor product called a transistor with a role to amplify electricity and a role as a switch to turn on / off the flow of electricity was born.
Easy to miniaturize, long life
Before semiconductors, a vacuum tube was used as a device to amplify electricity, but it was made of glass and has a certain size, so it was difficult to miniaturize and had a short life. A semiconductor can be made from elements while playing the same role or more, and it is easy to miniaturize and has a long life. In this way, it has come to be useful because it has overcome the disadvantages of the vacuum tubes used until then. Then, using such semiconductors, many of the functions of transistors were incorporated into a single chip, and IC chips (integrated circuits) were made and used for various electric products.
Moore’s law
Moore’s law refers to the rule of thumb by Gordon Moore, “The semiconductor integration rate will double in 18 months.” Simply put, the performance of semiconductors doubles in a year and a half, and at the same time, the cost to maintain the same performance is halved. As a matter of fact, the integration rate of semiconductors is indeed rising according to Moore’s law. This evolution continues, and the speed of its growth has greatly contributed to the spread of semiconductors.
At this time, it is said that the number of integrated semiconductors, which is called “Intel’s latest microprocessor,” is slightly smaller than one billion, and the number of integrateds will increase further in the future.
Summary
In this way, semiconductors are essential to control the electricity that is essential to our lives, and at the same time, they have the ability to respond to extraordinary growth and the speed of growth, so they are an integral part of the IT industry. As a result, it can be said that semiconductors have spread in the world like this.