"Integrated Circuit"

An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as IC, chip, ormicrochip) is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material. Additional materials are deposited and patterned to form interconnections between semiconductor devices.

Integrated circuits are used in virtually all electronic equipment today and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, cell phones, and other digital appliances are now inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the low cost of production of integrated circuits.

Integrated circuits were made possible by experimental discoveries showing that semiconductor devices could perform the functions of vacuum tubes and by mid-20th-century technology advancements in semiconductor device fabrication. The integration of large numbers of tiny transistorsinto a small chip was an enormous improvement over the manual assembly of circuits using discreteelectronic components. The integrated circuit's mass production capability, reliability, and building-block approach to circuit design ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of designs using discrete transistors.