Ever wonder what goes into the making of your new gadget? Electronic circuits are composed of individual transistors formed with resistors and diodes on a piece of silicon. The individual components are commonly connected using aluminum “wires” on the chip’s surface. This process results in the formation of IC, or integrated circuits. These ICs contain millions or just several transistors. ICs are responsible for the creation of video games, computers, digital watches, and most of today’s high tech gadgets.
ICs are usually grouped in two: analog/linear and digital/logic. But most sophisticated ICs combine digital and analog functions in forming a chip. As examples, digital chips sometimes include an analog/linear voltage regulator, while some analog chips include built-in digital counter. Combining integrated circuits is usually done to improve performance or add new features to a product such as giving counters time delays which are usually possible only with timers. These chips come in numerous different packages. In the present, the most popular and usual kinds are varieties of the DIP (Dual In-line Package). Ceramics or plastics are the usual...