Integrated Circuits

Integrated Circuit (IC) A thin chip consisting of at least two interconnected semiconductor devices, mainly transistors, as well as passive components like resistors. An electronic circuit where in all the elements of the circuit are integrated together on a single semiconductor substrate. Fabrication Techniques 1) Film IC a technique for depositing passive circuit elements on an insulating substrate a. Thin Film films with thickness less than approximately 100 microns, usually deposited through evaporation or sputtering. b. Thick Films produced by screening patterns of conducting and insulating materials on ceramic substrates. 2) Monolithic IC a complete electronic circuit fabricated as an inseparable assembly of circuit elements, mostly active ones, in a single small semiconductor structure. It cannot be divided without permanently destroying its intended electronic function. The physical properties of the semiconductor determine performance of the circuit to a large degree. Usual means of production are through diffusion and epitaxial methods. Most common integrated circuits such as microprocessors, memories, etc., are all monolithic. 3) Hybrid IC electronic circuit integrated on the ceramic substrate using various components and then enclosed in the single package. The substrate does not participate in the operation of the circuit, and connections between the components are formed on its surface and some components such as resistors and inductors may be fabricated directly onto it. Fabricated using diversified technologies, e.g. monolithic, thick film, etc., it has the advantage of design flexibility; that is, they can be designed to provide wide use in specialized applications, such as low-volume and high frequency circuits. Packaging Techniques To provide the necessary functions of interconnection, physical support, environmental protection and heat dissipation, the whole IC must be surrounded by or encased in a package. Packages may be simple or they maybe complex-depending on the nature of the device, the system of which it is a part and the environment in which the device must operate. The very surrounding of the IC with protective material, however, can degrade the performance if the device, increase its physical size and weight, make testing the device more difficult and decrease reliability. Moreover, the art of making the electronic

package incur costs-which may be far higher than the cost of the active device itself. Thus, the art of providing an effective electronic package becomes a complex balance of providing desired functions against constraints that may interact among themselves as even further constraints. Functions: Interconnection, Physical Support, Environment Protection and Heat Dissipation Constraints: Performance, Size, Weight, Testability, Reliability, and Cost As a practical matter, the IC manufacturer must decide whether to package a given IC in one or more standard packages (necessary for merchant sales) or develop one unique to its needs (giving it a systems advantage over its competitors).

Packaging Examples I. Surface Mount Technology (SMT) - a manufacturing process that attaches components on the surface of the printed circuit board rather than inserting components into plated-through holes, resulting in higher component density. A) Flat Pack - package with leads on two or four sides with either gull wing or flat leads. Many types of IC flat packs are being produced in various sizes and materials. These packages are available in square, rectangular, oval, and circular configurations with 10 to 60 external leads. They may be made of metal, ceramic, epoxy, glass, or combinations of those materials.

Quad Flat Pack (QFP) - a fine-pitch package that is rectangular or square with gull-wing shaped leads on all four sides. The lead pitch of a QFP is typically either 0.8mm or 0.65mm, although there are variations on this theme with smaller lead pitches. Any of these packages can have a wide variety of lead counts from 44 leads on up to 240 or more. Variations are Ceramic (CQFP), Plastic (PQFP), No Lead (NQFP), Thin (TQFP) and Very-thin (VQFP) or Low-profile (LQFP). B) Chip Carrier - a low profile four-sided (rectangular) part package, whose semiconductor chip cavity or mounting area is a large fraction of the chip size. They first came out as leadless chip carriers (LCC), which are a type of packaging for integrated circuits that has no "leads", but instead rounded pins through the edges of the ceramic package. However, by adding leads to the chip carrier, one has less concern about thermal expansion mismatches. C) Ball Grid Array (BGA) - A flip-chip type of package in which the internal die terminals form a grid-style array, and are in contact with solder balls (or solder bumps), which carry the electrical connection to the outside of the package. The PCB footprint will have round landing pads to which the solder balls will be soldered when the package and PCB are heated in a reflow oven. Advantages of the ball grid array package are that its size is compact and its leads do not get damaged in handling (unlike the formed gull-wing leads of a QFP) and thus have a long shelf life. Disadvantages of the BGA are they, or their solder joints, are subject to stress-related failure (the intense vibration of rocket-powered space vehicles can pop them right off the PCB); they can not be hand-soldered (they require a reflow oven), making first-article prototypes a bit more expensive to stuff; except for the outer rows, the solder joints can not be visually inspected and they are difficult to rework. D) Small Outline Integrated Circuit (SOIC) - a package with two parallel rows of 816 gull-wing leads protruding from its sides and has a lead pitch of 0.05 inches. It occupies an area about 30 - 50% less than an equivalent DIP, with a typical thickness that is 70% less. It is an excellent choice for maximum board density and is ideal for the automotive, telecommunications, computer industries, or any industry that requires dense placement of chips on boards. E) Thin Small Outline Package (TSOP) - package with two parallel rows of 20 to 48 gull-wing leads. This package is constructed using the latest low stress molding compounds and bonding technology to provide a package with total body thickness of less then 1.90 mm and a pitch is 20 mils. This package is popular for ROM applications in memory cards and other thin card applications. Variations are Thin Shrink Small Outline Package (TSSOP) and Thin Very Small Outline Package (TVSOP). II. Through-Hole Device (THD) - having pins designed to be inserted into holes and soldered to pads on a printed board. A) Single In-line Package (SIP) - package which has one row of connecting pins. It is not as popular as the dual in-line package, but has been used for packaging RAM chips and multiple resistors with a common pin. Standard lead pitch is 0.100 inch. B) Dual In-line Package (DIP) - package with two parallel rows of leads extending from the base of the component. Standard lead pitch is 0.100 inch. Designed

primarily to overcome the difficulties associated with handling and inserting packages into mounting boards. DIPs are easily inserted by hand or machine and require no spreaders, spacers, insulators, or lead-forming tools. Standard hand tools and soldering irons can be used to field-service the devices. A DIP is usually referred to as a DIPn, where n is the total number of pins. Plastic (PDIP) - although the least expensive DIP, it suffers from two major drawbacks: poor thermal dissipation and poor moisture protection. To overcome these drawbacks, hermetically sealed packages of several types are used. Also has a Shrink Plastic DIP (SPDIP), a smaller version with 0.07-inch lead pitch. Ceramic (CERDIP) - a sandwich structure with a ceramic base and lid bonded (with glass frit) to surround the lead frame assembly on which the chip is mounted. The lead frames must be bent before sealing, or the bending process would shatter the glass seal. C) Pin Grid Array (PGA) - The pin grid array or PGA is a type of packaging used particularly in microprocessors. The IC is mounted in a ceramic slab of which one face is covered, or partially covered, in a square array of metal pins. The pins can then be inserted into the holes in a printed circuit board and soldered in place. Standard lead pitch is 0.100 inch. For a given number of pins, this type of package occupies less space than older types such as the DIP. The greatest concerns with pin grid packages are: special handling is required to prevent lead damage (automatic insertion becomes a chilling thought for very high lead counts), inspection of solder joints is difficult, and removal and replacement of soldered units is very difficult because of the requirement and replacement of soldered units is very difficult because of the requirement to heat the substrate uniformly over a large area to effect release. III. Chip-on-Board (COB) - in this technology integrated circuits are glued and wirebonded directly to printed circuit boards instead of first being packaged. The electronics for many mass-produced toys are embedded by this system, which can be identified by the black glob of plastic sitting on the board. Underneath that glob (technical term: glob top), is a chip with fine wires bonded to both it and the landing pads on the board. IC Chip Categories I. Level of Integration number of logic gates involved, the values given are normal industry standards A) Small-scale Integration (SSI) fewer than 12 logic gates. These were crucial to early aerospace projects, and vice-versa. Both the Minuteman missile and Apollo program needed lightweight digital computers for their inertially-guided flight computers; the Apollo guidance computer led and motivated the integrated-circuit technology, while the Minuteman missile forced it into mass-production. B) Medium-scale Integration (MSI) 12 to 99 logic gates. Attractive economically because while they cost little more to produce than SSI devices, they allowed

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more complex systems to be produced using smaller circuit boards, less assembly work (because of fewer separate components), and a number of other advantages. Large-scale Integration (LSI) 100 to 999 logic gates. Began to be produced in large quantities around 1970, for computer main memories and pocket calculators. Very large-scale Integration (VLSI) 10,000 to 99,999 logic gates. Made it possible to fabricate a CPU on a single integrated circuit, to create a microprocessor. This step was largely made possible by the codification of "design rules" for the CMOS technology, which made production of working devices much more of a systematic endeavor. Ultra large-scale Integration (ULSI) 100,000 and more logic gates. Proposed for chips of complexity more than 1 million of transistors. However there is no qualitative leap between VLSI and ULSI, hence normally in technical texts the "VLSI" term covers ULSI as well, and "ULSI" is reserved only for cases when it is necessary to emphasize the chip complexity, e.g., in marketing. Wafer-scale Integration (WSI) uses whole uncut wafers containing entire computers (processors as well as memory). Attempts to take this step commercially failed, mostly because of defect-free manufacturability problems, and it does not now seem to be a high priority for industry. System-on-Chip (SOC) a further advancement in manufacturing technology that followed WSI in terms of IC complexity. In this approach, components traditionally manufactured as separate chips to be wired together on a printed circuit board, are designed to occupy a single chip that contains memory, microprocessor(s), peripheral interfaces, Input/Output logic control, data converters, etc., i.e., the whole electronic system.

II. Components used and device interconnection A) Bipolar Contain parts comparable to discrete bipolar transistors, diodes, capacitors, and resistors. Controlled by current applied to the control terminal (base). They are the largest and formerly most popular digital IC family. They can change states more than 20,000,000 times per second. Very inexpensive, but their drawback is that they must be powered by a 5 volt supply, and they use a lot of power. B) Metal-oxide semiconductors (MOS) Contain parts comparable to discrete transistors (NMOS, PMOS, and FETs). Source acts as the emitter; gate acts as the base; and the drain acts as the collector. Controlled by voltage produced on the controlling terminal (gate). P and N channels MOS contain more gates per chip than TTL. These make many special purpose chips, like microprocessors, memories, etc. Their drawbacks are: few counterparts to popular TTL chips, they're slower than TTL chips, and some require two or more supply voltages. They may also be damaged by static electricity. Complementary MOS, or CMOS, are the most versatile digital IC family. There are CMOS versions of most popular TTL chips. Most CMOS has a wide supply voltage range, typically from +3 to +18 V. It uses less power than any other digital IC family. Its drawbacks are that it can be damaged by static electricity.

C) Combination technology ICs that combine technologies are able to obtain the advantages from each technology. 1. BIFET Bipolar FET 2. BIMOS Bipolar MOS 3. BIDFET high voltage bipolar field-effect transistor; MOS technology added to the BIFET approach. 4. BIDMOS diffused metal-oxide semiconductor (DMOS) and bipolar technology 5. Lin CMOS silicon gate MOSFETs. Allows for linear and digital logic on the same IC. III. Application A) Digital Circuits a circuit whose step-function input voltage causes its output to change in a step-function manner from a specific value of voltage to another. The transition between the two voltage values is accomplished in essentially zero time. Each voltage level of this two-state circuit can represent a particular state, such as: ON/OFF, ZERO/ONE, TRUE/FALSE, HIGH/LOW, MARK/SPACE, or any other predetermined condition. They are implemented through Combinational logic circuits, which has basic logic gates as its basic building blocks, and Sequential logic circuits, which use flip-flops as its basic building blocks. 1. Decision-making Functions consist mainly of combinational gates. For every combination of bits in the various input wires, there is a definite, prearranged combination in the output wires to be decided upon. The output combination is the same every time a particular input combination occurs. Gates are grouped together in various combinations to form the decision-making circuits. a. Code converter circuits capable of encoding data to a usable form for the computer and decoding the data so it can be displayed or used by a peripheral. b. Data routing circuits routes data inside the computer from various sources to various destinations where they can be processed. Adder / Subtractor Command signals (enables) Comparator Multiplexer / Demultiplexer Selectors Translators 2. Memory-type Functions store information derived from previous combinations of inputs, so the combination of output bits depends not only on the input signals at the moment, but also on previous combinations of bits. These memory-type circuits are called sequential circuits. a. Counters used to count operations, quantities, and periods of time; or for addressing information in storage. b. Registers built simply by combining groups of flip-flops to act as a unit. The length of a register corresponds to the number of bits or flip-flops within this grouping. A register must be able to receive information from

one or more sources, preserve the information without alteration until it is needed and deliver the information to one or more destinations when it is required. B) Analog Circuits electronic circuits sense, measure, monitor, modify, amplify, operate, and control changing conditions. Circuits in which the output voltage varies as a continuous function of its input, they include no digital activity and encompass both linear and non-linear analog functions. 1. Linear circuits amplifying-type circuits in integrated form. A linear circuit is one whose output voltage is proportional to its input voltage, generally, over a clearly defined range of input voltage, output voltage, and frequency. The degree of deviation of the output voltage of a linear circuit from a proportional response to its input voltage is called "distortion". a. Operational Amplifier The basic gate for a linear IC, its function is to increase the power, current, or voltage applied to its inputs. The op amp was originally designed to perform mathematical operations, such as addition, subtraction, integration, and differentiation and derives its name from these operations. The circuit is now included in a considerably broader range of applications. b. Audio Amplifier in an audio system, sound coming from a source is converted to analog voltage variations. These signals are then amplified by the first linear audio amplifier section (pre-amplifier), whose output is too weak, is coupled to a second linear audio amplifier section (power amplifier), further amplifying the signal to provide enough power to drive the loudspeaker. 2. Non-linear circuits although a linear circuit can be referred to as an analog circuit, an analog circuit is not necessarily a linear circuit. Some analog circuits are specifically designed to provide an output voltage that is not proportional to its input, even though the output will vary as a function of the changing input voltage. a. Voltage Regulator convert a voltage applied to their input into a fixed or variable voltage. Most voltage regulators are installed in packages made of metal or having metal tabs to help radiate excessive heat into the surrounding air. b. Comparator basically a high gain amplifier without feedback that compares the level of the changing analog voltage at its input to a reference voltage. When the changing analog voltage has reached the reference voltage, a digital output voltage change appears at its output C) Interface Circuits As digital ICs are replacing the more traditional analog ICs, the need for electronic circuits that will effectively convert from one technique to the other is rapidly intensifying. To meet this need, IC manufacturers have been producing more precise, faster, smaller, low power consumption, and less expensive converter circuits. Analog-to-Digital Converter Digital-to-Analog Converter IV. Digital Logic Families

A) Saturation Logic Families slow but has low power dissipation 1. Resistor-Transistor Logic (RTL) Utilizes resistors and bipolar junction transistors as circuit elements Uses NOR gates as the standard gate Main limitation is limited fan-in, usually 3 inputs being the limit before it completely lost usable noise immunity Simple and inexpensive but is already obsolete 2. Diode-Transistor Logic (DTL) Utilizes diodes, resistors and BJTs as circuit elements Uses NAND gate as the standard gate More resilient to noise than RTL but also obsolete 3. High Level Diode-Transistor Logic (HDTL) Higher power supply voltage than DTL, usually powered by 25V instead of 5V Widely used in industry where machinery causes electrical noise and there are large power line transients 4. Transistor-Transistor Logic (TTL) Most widely used packaged IC Feature a multiple-emitter input transistor for fast switching speeds Uses NAND gate as the standard gate Faster than CMOS but consumes more power Often called bipolar since its logic gates use BJTs Variations of the TTL family include a. L Family (low power) slowest but has the least power consumption since its resistance values are higher than the standard TTL b. H Family (high power) high speed but also suffer high power consumption due to complex circuitry c. S Family (Schottky) uses Schottky diodes on the base of the transistor to keep them out of saturation d. LS Family (low power Schottky) has higher resistance so the speed decreased but the power dissipation dropped e. AS Family (advanced Schottky) utilizes Schottky barrier diodes clamped transistor, fastest among the the TTL family with lower power dissipation than the standard TTL f. ALS Family (advanced low power Schottky) third fastest and the second least power consumption B) Current Mode Logic Families fast but high power dissipation 1. Emitter-Coupled Logic (ECL) Has the fastest switching speeds compared to any logic ICs since its transistors are configured to act as difference-amplifier emitter followers that are never saturated Consumes more power than TTL SSI and MSI level Eliminates turn-off delay

Input logic levels are limited to a narrow voltage range to reduce the larger power dissipation resulting from active mode Also called Current-Mode Logic (CML), being the first of its family 2. Integrated-Injection Logic (IIL or I2L) Low power, high density logic family suitable for LSI and VLSI implementation Operates by saturating one or more input transistors Power dissipation is reduced by limiting the logic levels to saturation voltages Combines the low voltage swing of the ECL family and the saturation of the RTL to achieve the goal of high density at low power Also known as Merged Transistor Logic (MTL) 3. Complementary Metal-oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Uses p-channel and n-channel MOS transistors which consume the least power but at reduced speed Only uses significant power when its transistors are switching between on and off states Allows a high density of logic functions on a chip Can operate with variable power supply, from +3 to +18V Variations include CD (CMOS Digital), TTLC (Bipolar TTL series in CMOS technology), QMOS (Quick MOS) and HMOS (High-Speed MOS)