Integrated Circuits

The integrated circuits offer a number of advantages over those made by interconnecting discrete components. These are summarized as follows     Extremely small size—thousands times smaller than discrete circuit. It is because of fabrication of various circuit elements in a single chip of semi-conductor material Very small weight owing to miniaturized circuit Very low cost because of simultaneous production of hundreds of similar circuits on a small semiconductor wafer. Owing to mass production an IC costs as much as an individual transistor     More reliable because of elimination of soldered joints and need for fewer inter-connections Low power consumption because of their smaller size Easy replacement as it is more economical to replace them than to repair them Increased operating speeds because of absence of parasitic capacitance effect Close matching of components and temperature coefficients because of bulk produc¬tion in batches ...

Integrated Circuits play a very important part in electronics. Most are specially made for a specific task and contain up to thousands of transistors, diodes and resistors. Special purposes IC's such as audio-amplifiers, FM radios, logic blocks, regulators and even a whole micro computers in the form of a micro controller can be fitted inside a tiny package.  Some of the simple Integrated Circuits         Depending on the way they are manufactured, integrated circuits can be divided into two groups: hybrid and monolithic. Hybrid circuits have been around longer. If a transistor is opened, the crystal inside is very small. This means a transistor doesn't take up very much space and many of them can be fitted into a single Integrated Circuit The pin-out for some of the common packages is shown Most integrated Circuits are in a DIL package - Dual In Line, meaning there are two rows of pins. (DIL16...