In our daily life and work, we often use a variety of electronic or electrical products, such as computers, mobile phones, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.

 

These products, if we take them apart, will see a green board similar to the following.

 

Sometimes it's blue or black.

 

Everyone knows that this green board is called a circuit board. A more official name is the printed circuit board, which is also known as PCB (Printed Circuit Board, sometimes referred to as PWB, Printed Wire Board, abroad).

 

On the PCB, many electronic components are soldered, such as capacitors, resistors, inductors, etc.We can also observe that there are some black square components.

 

Indeed, this component is very likely to be a chip (known as "chip" in English).

 

 

 

**Definition of a Chip**

 

The term "chip" is actually a rather general term.

 For electronic devices, it is hidden inside and is extremely important, equivalent to the engine of a car or the heart of a person, hence it is called the "core." In terms of form, it is in pieces, so it is called "slice." Together, it is called a "chip."

Generally speaking, a chip is an integrated circuit. The two can be equated and used interchangeably.

An integrated circuit is relatively easy to define. By using specific technology to integrate electronic components such as transistors, resistors, capacitors, and diodes on a single substrate to form a miniature circuit, it is called an integrated circuit.

If this substrate uses a semiconductor material (such as silicon), or in other words, if the integrated circuit is made from a semiconductor material wafer, it belongs to the category of semiconductor integrated circuits.

The integrated circuits we traditionally refer to are basically semiconductor integrated circuits. Therefore, sometimes the terms semiconductor, chip, and integrated circuit are also used interchangeably.If one delves into the details, there are still some differences between chips and integrated circuits.

Some industry perspectives suggest:

An integrated circuit is a circuit, a fundamental unit, primarily emphasizing the realization of a certain function, such as a certain logical operation. In scenarios like circuit design, this term is used more frequently.

On the other hand, a chip is a more macroscopic, more product-oriented concept. After going through design, manufacturing, packaging, and testing, the product form that can be directly used is considered a chip. When emphasizing the use, people will use the term "chip" more often, such as CPU chip, AI chip, baseband chip, etc.

Some also define a chip as: "A general semiconductor component product that contains one or more integrated circuits and can perform a specific function." In other words, a chip is a general term for semiconductor component products.In comparison, the distinction between semiconductors and integrated circuits is clearer:

Semiconductors include: integrated circuits + discrete devices + optoelectronic devices + sensors.

The main difference between integrated circuits and the other three lies in the level of integration. The number of transistors in integrated circuits is far greater than that in discrete devices, optoelectronic devices, and sensors. Additionally, the substrate materials are generally different.

At present, the combined market size of optoelectronic devices, discrete devices, and sensors only accounts for about 10% of the total semiconductor market size.

Therefore, we can say: integrated circuits are the most important component of semiconductors.Chip Classification

A chip is a set of circuits designed to perform specific functions. It has the characteristic of modularity, which facilitates manufacturers to quickly carry out product design and research and development, reducing the difficulty of development and shortening the development cycle.

Over the past few decades, semiconductor technology has developed rapidly under the guidance of Moore's Law. The size of chips has become smaller and smaller, and the number of circuits they contain has increased, significantly reducing the size, cost, and power consumption of electronic products.

Not only has it improved our quality of life, but it has also led the information technology revolution and promoted the progress of human civilization as a whole.

It is because of chips that we have smartphones.Nowadays, chips have a very wide range of applications and have also spawned many categories.

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) has a more authoritative and official classification method. They divide all integrated circuit categories into: Analog, Micro, Logic, and Memory.

On the unofficial level, the classification is more arbitrary.

According to function, we often divide chips into: computing chips, storage chips, communication chips, perception chips, energy chips, and interface chips.

The types of chips we are more familiar with include the following:According to the grade, chips can be divided into consumer-grade, industrial-grade, automotive-grade, military-grade, and aerospace-grade. Based on the design concept, they can also be categorized into general-purpose chips (such as CPU, GPU, etc.) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

We can also classify chips based on the manufacturing process, such as the commonly heard 28nm, 14nm, 7nm, and 5nm. Alternatively, they can be categorized by semiconductor materials, such as silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and gallium nitride (GaN). We will introduce these again when discussing the chip manufacturing process later.

In fact, in addition to electronic chips, we have also developed optical chips (such as silicon photonics technology), using light to replace electric current to transmit signals.From the perspective of integrated circuits, there are many types of classifications.

According to the manufacturing process, integrated circuits can be divided into semiconductor integrated circuits and film integrated circuits (film integrated circuits use metals and ceramics, etc.). Film integrated circuits are further divided into thick-film integrated circuits and thin-film integrated circuits.

In terms of circuit properties, we can also classify them into digital integrated circuits, analog integrated circuits, and mixed-signal integrated circuits.

Digital integrated circuits, as the name implies, deal with digital signals. They are the most common in our surroundings, such as microprocessors (CPUs, GPUs, etc.), digital signal processors (DSPs), and microcontrollers (MCUs), all of which are digital integrated circuits.Analog integrated circuits are widely used in sensors, power chips, operational amplifiers, and other applications, primarily for amplifying, filtering, demodulating, and mixing analog signals.

Hybrid integrated circuits integrate analog and digital circuits on a single chip. As you might have guessed, analog-to-digital (ADC) and digital-to-analog (DAC) conversion chips fall into this category.

Based on the number of microelectronic devices integrated on the chip (scale), integrated circuits can be divided into the following categories:

(Note: The original text seems to be incomplete here, so I cannot provide a direct translation for the missing part.)

More specifically, according to the type of conductivity, integrated circuits can also be classified into bipolar integrated circuits and unipolar integrated circuits.The manufacturing process of bipolar integrated circuits is complex, and they have a relatively high power consumption. Representative types of integrated circuits include TTL, ECL, HTL, LST-TL, STTL, etc.

 

The manufacturing process of unipolar integrated circuits is relatively simple, and they have a lower power consumption, making it easier to produce large-scale integrated circuits. Representative types of integrated circuits include CMOS, NMOS, PMOS, etc.

 

The above terms will be explained in detail by Little Red Date in subsequent sections when introducing the working principles of chips.

 

 

█ Internal Structure of the ChipAs we mentioned earlier, chips generally appear as black square pieces.

Sometimes, they may also have a silver metal cover (for enhanced protection and also conducive to heat dissipation).

The number of transistors in a chip usually represents the capability of the chip. The more transistors, the more circuits, and the stronger the functionality and computing power. Nowadays, many manufacturers will always emphasize how many transistors are inside the chip when releasing it, which is this meaning.

NVIDIA's H100 GPU has 80 billion transistors.

There are simple chips (relatively speaking) and complex ones. Some complex chips are also divided into various different functional modules. These modules together form a system, which becomes SoC (System on Chip, System on Chip, System-level Chip).Our smartphone main chips, such as Qualcomm Snapdragon, MediaTek Dimensity, and Huawei Kirin, are all typical System on Chip (SoC) chips. The chips include a CPU, GPU, APU, ISP, baseband, RF, and so on.

So, here comes the question, how can the transistors inside the chip perform a variety of tasks such as computing and storage?

What do we often refer to as logic gates, MOSFETs, FinFETs, and PN junctions?