= Integrated circuit
{title2=IC}
{wiki}
It is quite amazing to read through books such as <The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray by Charles J. Murray (1997)>, as it makes you notice that earlier <CPUs> (all before the 70's) were not made with <integrated circuits>, but rather smaller pieces glued up on <PCBs>! E.g. the <arithmetic logic unit> was actually a discrete component at one point.
The reason for this can also be understood quite clearly by reading books such as <Robert Noyce: The Man Behind the Microchip by Leslie Berlin (2006)>. The first <integrated circuits> were just too small for this. It was initially unimaginable that a CPU would fit in a single chip! Even just having a very small number of components on a chip was already revolutionary and enough to kick-start the industry. Just imagine how much money any level of integration saved in those early days for production, e.g. as opposed to manually soldering <point-to-point constructions>. Also the reliability, size an weight gains were amazing. In particular for military and spacial applications originally.
\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z47Gv2cdFtA]
{title=A briefing on semiconductors by <Fairchild Semiconductor> (1967)}
{description=
Uploaded by the <Computer History Museum>. <There is value in tutorials written by early pioneers of the field>, this is pure <gold>.
Shows:
* <photomasks>
* <silicon> <ingots> and <wafer (electronics)> processing
}
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