The Evolution of Computing [Documentary] (Vacuum Tube to Transistor to Integrated Circuit)

Hi, thanks for tuning into Singularity Prosperity. In the previous video on this channel we discussed the evolution of the field of computing, from as early as the Chinese abacus to the integrated circuit. To expand on that, this video is a culmination of a series of documentaries from the vacuum tube, transistor and integrated circuit eras. The reason I wanted to do this is to provide further insight into how computers have evolved, highlighting the exponential growth from less than half a century ago and providing further background context for future videos on this channel. Additionally, so we can appreciate the advances in modern technology we all often take for granted and the humble beginnings that came from. Enjoy the documentaries, consider subscribing and let me know your thoughts on the subject matter in the comments below! [Music] Electronics is a science that applies these tubes to the service of math to the speeding of production to the winning of the war to understand how electronic tubes work let's take a good look at one of them one this representative of his species this is a diode the typical two element electronic tube let's get inside in fundamental operation it presents an ordinary single pole switch a switch that can connect for instance this battery and it's motor low one power lead comes to the anode the other lead goes to the cathode when this switch is open the contacts are insulated from each other by a vacuum or by some inert gas inserted into an evacuated tube under low pressure to close this switch electronically all we need do is heat the cathode and give the anode a positive potential then here's what happens as electron from the surface of the heated cathode being negatively charged they fly at tremendous speed to the anode in this way a current-carrying path is formed which closes our electronic switch and permits our motor to operate you'll notice by the way that the direction of electron flow is contrary to the Orthodox concept of current flow from plus to minus now at this point you may ask if an electronic tube is basically just a form of switch why is electronics hailed today is the technique of a new engineering era to answer that question let's review six of the basic things that we can do with this new kind of switch in the first place we can rectify current with converting AC to DC we can do this merely by connecting an electronic tube in series with an AC circuit as you study this circuit diagram note that only each positive half wave of AC voltage will now produce a current when the anode is negative the electrons are repelled and no current flows in other words because only the cathode can emit electrons we have here what amounts to a one-way street we can visualize the result of the tubes rectifying action with the aid of these two oscilloscope the one on the Left shows alternating current coming in the one on the right shows pulsating direct current going out the applications of this basic rectifying principle are many and important here's one of them changing AC to DC on the nation's electrified transportation systems here's another rectification for electroplating operations of all kinds operations possible only with direct current LLL another example furnishing DCM steel-mill for the driving of variable speed motors such as the one controlling this giant ladle or the ones driving steel conveyors with such precise control of speed the danger of buckling and tearing and consequent mill damage is eliminated electronic rectification is also helping to build American airpower by making available record-breaking quantities of aluminum for plane construction come Arkansas must to American air power involves a complicated conversion of material before pure aluminum can be extracted from this bauxite ore direct-current must be applied in a vital reduction process to obtain that direct current from AC transmission line the exact tron rectifier is used this Westinghouse electronic development changes vast quantities of AC to DC with higher efficiency than any similar type of conversion equipment today it's the main source of current supply for the nation's great aluminum industry an industry that has achieved a miraculous expansion to meet the demands of a world at war magnesium from seawater is another achievement of industry under the stress of war ignite Tron's used in the extraction process speed up the delivering of incendiary and demolition bombs to the centres of axis production still another example of electronic rectification at work is the precipitant a device for cleaning air electrostatically this diagram explains how the Pacific Tron works the rectifying property of electronic tubes is used to apply a potential of 13,000 volts DC to tungsten wires and 6,500 volts DC to collect their place as incoming air passes through the field of these wires each particle of dirt receives a positive electrostatic charge when the positively charged particle reaches the collector chamber is attracted to and deposited on negative plate in this way air is clean so thoroughly the dirt particles down to a quarter millions of an inch are removed this is a vital advantage today not only in homes and public buildings but in industrial plants of all kinds for instance in plants manufacturing delicate instruments where air cleanliness is necessary for precision work in work rooms where optical systems are assembled for a host of military purposes in inspection rooms where my new parts must be closely examined under high magnification air cleanliness is vital to in film developing rooms like this one to understand how electronic air cleaning helps here let's go aloft in a reconnaissance plane [Music] click 5,000 feet above the earth the camera shutter opens and closes scores of square miles of enemy territory have been squeezed down into an image on a photographic plate an image measured in inches instead of mild on this photograph a city might be covered by a tip of a finger a speck of dust could hide enough the airdrome the rectifying tubes of the precipitant help make sure that dust doesn't sabotage military photography now so far in this film we've discussed only one of the basic things we can do with the electronic cue we can use it to rectify the second basic thing we can do with it is amplify here's how between the cathode and the anode of the two elements to which we diagrammed a while ago we now place a grid to this grid we connect an input of some weak voltage which we wish to amplify perhaps that of a faint radio signal from halfway around the world now let's see what happens every time a negative potential is impressed on the grid even though it'd be very - it has a large effect in reducing the number of the negatively charged electrons which would otherwise keep flying from cathode to anode conversely when the grid is positive an equally large effect is exerted in increasing the flow of electrons from cathode we know the important thing to note here is this a small amount of power applied to the grid is amplified into a large amount of power in the anode or work circuit this amplifying property of the 3 element electronic tube is put to work in innumerable way westinghouse electronic amplification now helps provide radio and radio telephone contact between aeroplanes and control stations on the ground between ships and their communication bases both afloat from the shore between individual tanks and their tank Force commanders between firing line and headquarters between C drom lights and light flying pilots who can turn them on by radio signal in the field of power engineering electronic amplification permits the measurement and analysis of minus voltages stepping them up to the point where they can be seen and interpreted on oscilloscopes when this giant rotor is completed its precise Dianetics balancing will be made possible by amplifying to testing of these propellers the vibration fatigue will also be facilitated by electronic amplifying to up to now we've considered two of the basic things that the electronic tube can do it can rectify it can amplify a third thing it can do is generate the term generate in this connection is meant in a general rather than a technical sense a triode is connected for oscillation in the way shown here the system then becomes capable of changing direct current into alternating current note that what we're doing in this case is amplifying in the usual way and then feeding back to the grid part of the amplified voltage continued repetition of this feedback results cumulatively in a strong alternating current this electronic means of generating alternating current is important because it can produce very high frequencies frequencies up to millions of cycles far beyond the range of ordinary rotating equipment a familiar application of this is the radio transmitter this modern transmitting room the Westinghouse station KDKA is a far cry from the pioneering equipment of its famous predecessor this scene reproduces an historic occasion the first time a radio transmitter was used for large-scale public entertainment this is station KDKA of the Westinghouse Electric and manufacturing company we are about to begin the reading of the presidential election returns between warren g harding and James M Cox standby please here is a new less familiar application of electronic high frequency generation high frequency heating of two hundred thousand cycles per second is now used to float Tim as the final step in the electrolytic plating of steel strip after steel strip comes from its electrolytic tin plating bath it first passes through a washer and between hot air drying jets at this point the steel strip has a coating of Tim that is relatively dull and porous next comes a vital step the strip is raised to the top of the heater unit housing inside of which is a series of high-frequency coils as the strip comes down through these coils induced electric current causes heat which flows the tin almost instantaneously greatly improving its structure as a protective covering here's the result in place that is mirror smooth free from porosity so perfect a protective covering the one pound of tin can now do the work of three note the horizontal bars in this close-up these are parts of one of the high-frequency coils that affect the tins low if you look closely you can see the difference in texture between the poorest TM entering the top of the coils and the shiny flows Tim leaving at its base and these are the tubes that generate the high frequency current which makes the entire process possible another important result of this new westinghouse electronic process is time saving tim can now be flowed at a rate of more than a thousand feet a minute here's another example of where electronic high frequency generation is doing a job today dialectic bonding of plastic and plywood sections in a matter of minutes instead of days as a result of this application by wood instructed PT boats can be produced more speedily dielectric heating also cures intricate plastic forms faster and better here our dialectically cured plastic pieces being given a stress analysis carrier currents relaying also applies the electronic principle of high frequency generation here's part of the equipment that does the work this equipment makes possible an enormous increase in the speed with which transmission lines can be cleared of faults its effect is to increase the load carrying ability of a system up to 50 percent or more we've now Illustrated three of the basic ways that the electronic tube can be put to work it rectifies it amplifies is generate and here's a fourth thing it does its control this diagram illustrates one of the principle mechanisms of electronic control we use the grid here not to amplify a weak signal but to control the flow of power to a machine to do this we connect the control circuit in such a way that it becomes a function of temperature feeds time or any other variable as a result grid potential is varied and the work circuit is automatically closed modified or open and we can do all this with split-second timing and incomparable precision take for instance this electronically controlled spot welder without sound without friction without flame electronic control on this equipment makes and breaks contact with split-second timing team welding - is electronically controlled as a result flame parts today are being literally sewn together with electric current as thread but welding of course represents only one opportunity for electronic control automatic stepless regulation of motor speeds is another application without the smooth acceleration which such control makes possible delicate materials such as the capacitor windings being handled here might be broken under the shock of starting and abrupt speed changes now for still another basic thing that the electronic tube can do it can also serve as a bridge to transform light into electric current here's how we replace the ordinary heat activated cathode of a two element electronic tube with one made of photosensitive material light can now replace heat as the simulator of electronic emission the stronger the light the greater the electronic emission and consequently with the aid of an amplifier the more power flowing through the worse circuit this is important because it means that photoelectric tubes can function as light relays and so be given an almost infinite variety of jobs to do handing the soundtrack of the talking motion picture film you're listening to right now is one of them another is the television camera the Icona scope used in this camera is merely a special form of electronics to product and process control is still another application in this plant a photo troller automatically stops a conveyor belt every time a lightning arrester comes to its point of inspection here a westinghouse electronic eye inside the metal housing our pinholes in metal strips as it comes from the rolls automatically operating a relay that rejects defective sections dropping them out of the production line without a moment's loss of working time one of the most important basic things is the electronic tube can do remains yet to be listed besides transforming light into electric current it can also transform electric current into light let's go ray tube is an application of this property through the aid of this tube an electron beam is able to recreate an original image on a screen of a television receiving set the electronic x-ray tube indirectly also transforms electric current into light and bias effect on photographic plate into light images here's how an x-ray tube works a high potential ranging up to 300,000 volts or more is applied between me an Odom cathode electrons are emitted by a focusing cathode due to the extremely high voltage the electrons hit pianos with tremendous impact and caused the emission of waves of exceptionally high frequency these high-frequency way to do three useful things penetrate excite fluorescence or affect photographic plates as a result doctors can now study human internal organs by means of the fluoroscope or by means of radiography they can photograph them industrial x-ray today is also playing a vital role detecting porosity and fissures in welded metal scene examining heavy castings for invisible internal weaknesses but x-ray isn't the only example of electronic usefulness in the conversion of current into light the whole field of modern fluorescent lighting represents another application so does the field of ultraviolet radiation harmless-looking tubes like this one have a deadly effect on bacteria and other forms of microscopic life in this demonstration farm easier rather than bacteria are about to be subjected to sterile amp ray notice what happens the sterile lamps today is becoming increasingly important both as a servants of Public Health and as a device for the preservation of perishable good so many I'm so buried are the applications of electronics but a single film like this can mention only one in a thousand we haven't even mentioned for instance radar the electronic developments that help save Britain during the decisive weeks of the German here's what happened ultra-high frequency waves were broadcast into the skies from English defense stations when enemy planes approached in the darkness or in the fog these waves would reflect back to the transmitting point thus giving warning to the defenders of Britain permitting out aircraft batteries to swing into action nor AF planes to rise for combat whenever Hitler's bombers attack at whatever altitude from whatever direction British interceptors were waiting for them as a result the Luftwaffe was blasted from the English skies on the tide of war turn [Music] yes the electronic tube in essence is only a switch but wanna switch it rectified amplified generate control transforms right into electricity and back into light again [Music] these cubes that look so mysterious are essentially simple in operation incredibly rugged and sure in application they open enclose all forms of electronic circuits as quickly as the lightning flash and as silently as the passage of time in the world of today they're helping us to win a war in the world of tomorrow they bid fair to lift all of us the new levels of achievement comfort and security [Music] this picture is about the transistor there are three transistors here in this collection of small electronic parts the original point-contact type the junction type and the photo transistor and here is a more complex type of transistor this is called the junction tetrode these tiny transistors are destined to play a big part in our electronic age they will make possible smaller more compact electronic devices that will need less maintenance and have a longer life but to grasp fully the importance of these new members of the electronic family let's recall the wonders made possible by the high vacuum Q the common radio tube the roots of the electronic age reached back into the early years of our century in nineteen seven dr. lee deforest discovered that a grid of fine wire placed between a filament and a metal plate in a vacuum tube could control the flow of electrons between the filament and plate and the tube could be made to amplify as well as detect electrical waves he called this amplifying cube and Audion weak signals applied to the input or grid of the Audion caused similar and much stronger signals to flow from the plate or output a few years later two scientists dr. Arnold of Bell Telephone laboratories and dr. Lyon your of General Electric working independently found it by pumping out the Audion tube to create a very high vacuum they obtained greater fidelity and stability here is one of the first time vacuum tubes that started us on the way to the wonders of our electronic age by 1915 telephone research physicists and engineers had succeeded in developing methods of manufacturing the vacuum tube with sufficiently uniform characteristics so that hundreds of them were installed as amplifiers thus making possible the first telephone line between New York and San Francisco and three thousand mile transcontinental telephone calls became a reality this same year 1915 at Arlington Virginia telephone engineers hooked together 500 vacuum tubes to generate enough radio power to send the human voice across the Atlantic for the first time in history words spoken into a radio telephone transmitter at Arlington were heard by engineers listening at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and also at Pearl Harbor Hawaii 1920 brought the beginning of radio broadcasting but a vacuum tube radio receiver it was a real luxury then the next 10 years gave us talking motion pictures transoceanic radio telephone service television demonstrations and ship-to-shore telephony with our electronic age in full swing the coaxial cable the cathode ray tube the Icona scope and the image orthicon aided by hundreds of more conventional vacuum tubes gave us television radar for war radar for peace and then microwave radio relay to speed hundreds of telephone calls as well as television programs from coast to coast the heart of all these electronic systems has been the vacuum tube but the Bell Telephone laboratories have added an entirely new and different heart to modern communication systems the transistor operating on a new and different principle arising from basic research on solid substances and how the electrons inside them behave how did it all come about well doctors Shockley Bardeen and Brattain and their associates at the Bell Telephone laboratories were working on a problem in pure research investigating the surface properties of germanium a substance known to be a semi conductor of electricity their study suggested a way to amplify an electric current within a solid without a vacuum or a heating element and after months of calculations experiments tests the transistor was born the transistor a new name a new device that can do many of the jobs done by the vacuum tube and many that you can't do let's see how the transistor and cube measure up first off the vacuum tube is power-hungry while a tube like this generally demands a watt or more of electricity a millionth of a watt is enough for the transistor even a makeshift battery of moist blotting paper wrapped around a coin can power a transistor the vacuum tube gets pretty hot sometimes a little too hot that's why in complex devices the tubes must be spaced far enough apart for proper ventilation since transistors remain cool they can be crowded together in a small space in size reliability and ruggedness to the tiny transistor has many advantages and research goes on to make it still more useful many new and improved types of transistors have followed the early models but transistors are no longer just an experiment here they are being produced at the Allentown Pennsylvania plant of Western Electric the manufacturing and supply unit of the Bell System different types for different purposes the Bell Telephone people have lots of jobs lined up for them jobs based on the transistors ability to amplify speech sounds in this way this is all my voice would sound over a 75-mile telephone line that has no amplifying device now with the transistor amplifier in the line my voice is amplified so that you can hear me distinctly this for example would mean that in isolated farmhouses far from central exchanges the transistor right in the telephone will make it easier for the farmer to hear and be heard on his rural telephone and transistors can replace many of the vacuum tubes used in providing long-distance telephone service because they are so tiny transistors have made it possible to miniaturized many types of electronic equipment this equipment requires less space and will cost less to maintain transistors may also be used in multi-channel telephony which increases the number of calls that can be carried at the same time along telephone lines when you dial Direct from your town to a distant city transistors in this route selector may be helping to mark out the pathway along which your call will go transistors may someday go under the sea built right into underwater telephone cables but transistors go well with lots of other industries too many manufacturers have been licensed to produce transistors and devise new applications through their efforts you may be able to get music with the flick of your wrist from the so called Dick Tracy radio [Music] and with a portable television set you may be able to enjoy video entertainment anywhere you go for the military the transistor opens up fantastic possibilities most of them into earlier stage of development to be talked about transistors will take their place in the complex calculating machines that have often been called electronic brains because they enable man to save days months even years in solving mathematical problems of course we cannot build a calculating machine as flexible as the human brain but even a man-made computer designed to do hundreds of brain like calculating jobs might need an empire state building to house it and a Niagara Falls to power and cooler if vacuum tubes were used in its construction substituting transistors for tubes such a versatile machine could fit into a good-sized room and power and cooling needs would be relatively low with the transistor man has drawn far toward matching some of the capacity of the human brain he has done it with imagination with the inventiveness and teamwork of the Bell Telephone scientists who are looking forward to the age just beyond the age of electronics [Music] [Laughter] this is a report on integrated circuits with dr. Jim angel professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the solid-state electronics laboratory at Stanford University and dr. Harry sello manager of the materials and processes department at Fairchild Semiconductor research laboratories hello we're going to tell you about the recent revolution of electronics of course there have been many recent revolutions in electronics you hear a bottom all the time will tell you what is an integrated circuit how to design it we'll go through the agony of how it's made and finally tell you about some of the uses of it and what they're good for but first let's have a commercial it started here pure PN junctions from a pile of sand plane are silicon integrated circuits invented here the epitaxial process a secret locked in a crystal higher yields in 1/10 the time invented here metal over oxide you can't make an integrated circuit without it invented here Fairchild brought out the first NPN silicon Mesa double diffused transistor the first PNP Silicon Mesa double diffused transistor the first plain are NPN transistor the first planar PNP transistor the first lifetime controlled silicon plane on our transistor the first planar epitaxial PNP transistor the first silicon RF transistor the first plane r2 transistor the first planar silicon controlled rectifier the first planar epitaxial power transistor the first resistor transistor logic family the first complimentary transistor logic family the first dual inline package the first commercially available face-down bonded circuit [Music] processes product packages price oh yes and production invented here just not a jump by you saying what is an integrated circuit here is a packaged integrated circuit inside this package is a tip of silicon which provides the electrical equivalent of many transistors resistors and diodes all interconnected to provide the desired function before we discuss in detail what's inside that package I'd like to show you some evolutionary examples of what integrated circuits can do for the appearance of electronic equipment here is a photograph of a printed circuit board from a digital computer all our 1960 pre-historic right built out of transistors separate resistors and diodes wired together on the printed circuit board here is the electrical equivalent of the circuit you saw in the previous photograph built-in integrated circuit form of vintage 1963 notice how much smaller and simpler to this board I have here a newer version of integrated circuits containing in the upper left hand corner eight integrated circuits outlined now those eight integrated circuits provide essentially the same function that was provided by this board namely 24 integrated circuit down to eight notice that the wiring on this package is extremely orderly and well-organized I see less pin connections - this is perhaps too typical Harry that we find as we make a more complex function in one structure the number of pins tends to go up only as roughly the square root of the complexity that's provided by that for now you've seen an evolution of transistors to early integrated circuits through modern ones let me show you a series of photographs which shows you what's inside the corresponding and here is a photograph of a single transistor chip such as we might find in the 1960 version of the computer board I showed you old-style again is the intermediate style you remember the 1963 integrated circuit packages here is what would be in one of them typically 10 transistors here is a modern 1966 version of integrated circuits with many hundreds of components on this one circuit this particular function provides 16 bits of digital memory in this one package now integrated circuits can not only be used for digital but also for linear service here is an if' strip transistorized and hence perhaps three years old here is its integrated circuit counterpart providing exactly the same function notice how much simpler it is the wiring is roughly the same the simplicity is greater hence we can expect that it will not only be cheaper but more reliable and these are perhaps the most important contributions of integrated circuits let's get on to how to design an integrated circuit alright let's do it by way of an example up here we have a circuit or a typical structure which might be an integrated form this particular circuit has 20 components in diodes transistors and resistors after the configuration has been chosen by usual techniques the next step is to build a breadboard model in actual working form on the breadboard we have separate transistors and other components all actually wired into a working circuit the purpose of working with the breadboard is to try to optimize the numerical value of each of the components in the circuit once this optimization has been achieved the next job is the design of the masks which will be used to make the integrated circuit alright I wonder if you could cover some of that work yes I can so we made the engineer pick up a soldering iron let's see we can make it an artist out of him by using yet another example there is a full-scale 30 by 30 inch piece of typical integrated circuit artwork which represents in a careful careful precise form the interconnection pattern of an integrated circuit for example these are the metal pads these will be on the integrated circuit the metal pads which in connect to the outside world here we have the transistors and here are diodes and more interconnecting metals the problem here is to very carefully and precisely convert this large scale drawing into a small precise version of this on a 2 by 2 inch glass plate this artwork is reduced 500 times by a process of high-resolution photography - a glass plate upon which the pattern shown by the artwork is successively stepped and exposed all the way across the glass up to 1500 times which means of course 1500 integrated circuits now the artwork which I showed was only one mask potentially here is the artwork in reduced plastic overlay version which goes with a complete set to make an integrated circuit there are five to seven or even more of these potential masks all of these must align carefully and precisely these then will be translated into another set of glass masks which will then be used for contact printing directly onto silicon wafers in working with silicon this is what you begin with a silicon ingot it's a glass-like material very brittle very much like diamond in fact it costs about like diamonds and is a member of the diamond family this is made in a series of long rods by a process known as crystal pulling it cools as it is pulled however it is still very hot since it's been grown at a very high temperature up around the region of 1,400 degrees centigrade we cut this into thin wafers about 12 thousandths of an inch thick by using a diamond saw after cutting the wafers are very carefully polished so you end up with a mirror-like surface which is essential in the preparation of the integrated circuits the finished chip is about five thousandths of an inch thick let's take a look inside the silicon this is a cross-section of the wafer we just watched being made to protect it from the outside world we allow oxygen to react with the top surface and grow an oxide called the passivating silicon dioxide layer now we're going to make use of the masks we made earlier first the wafer is coated with a photosensitive resin the mask is then placed on the wafer and the system is then exposed to light as a result the exposed resin hardens the remaining resin can be simply rinsed away the wafer is then exposed to acid those areas of the passivating layer not protected by the hardened resin are etched away in the next operation called diffusion the wafer is exposed to a dopant this impurity diffuses through the window and into the silicon below forming the collector of a transistor in our integrated circuit but notice at the same time diffusion is taking place more oxide is being formed this is the essence of the planar process now we're going to strip off the passivating layer and grow a new layer of silicon right on top of the diffused wafer by a process called epitaxial growth now we form electrically isolated regions on the wafer by a process of diffusion photosensitive coating masking exposure rinsing edging and diffusion next we prepare the individual parts of the integrated circuit first a transistor base and a resistor the same procedure is followed notice that diffusion takes place not only downwards but also laterally under the oxide as a result the junction is formed beneath the passivating layer where is protected from the outside world the next diffusion forms an emitter and a collector contact to complete the transistor again the same process the next step enables us to interconnect the various components and to make contact with them again will etch Windows in the oxide but instead of another diffusion a layer of metal is deposited over the entire surface of the wafer then by use of the proper masks the excess metal can be etched away sometimes we like to make resistors a different way by using the metal interconnection pattern all you have to do is make the metal pathway a little narrower and it provides higher resistance if we wish to make a capacitor we take advantage of the fact that the oxide layer is an excellent dielectric material a small area of metal is deposited forming one plate of a capacitor the oxide is the dielectric and the silicon directly below the oxide forms the other plate the series of schematic operations taking place on one structure that you just saw actually takes place across a whole wafer this results in a wafer containing many integrated circuits up to 1500 of them now comes the electrical testing of this wafer Jim can you take over on this part certainly Harry even though we have been very careful in fabricating this wafer containing many hundreds of integrated circuits not all these circuits on the way from a flawless the first job is to determine and mark those circuits which are not good we test the wafer in a probe testing machine we then scribed the wiper using a diamond point in the scribing machine after separating cleaning and drying the integrated circuits we fish out the ones that are bad if we have been successful to this point we have a high yield of good ones from this point on we are going to package the circuit and so whenever we throw it away we're going to fall away a complete package that's a good point Jim let's look into this matter of packaging a little bit you know we've exercised a lot of care in bringing the integrated circuit chip to this point in the processing and we've also done it economically because mostly we've processed them as wafers fifteen hundred at a time from here on out as you point it out we will be handling them as individuals putting expensive packages around them so how we treat the packages is important in the old days it was simple you had a wide choice to large and small a to18 outline small and the to.5 larger outline these days we have upwards of two hundred and fifty varieties of packages and the user can select any one of them here are an example of three of these the dual inline package a plastic package and a flat pack the most nearly universal of these is the dual inline package let's take a closer look at just how that is made you start out with the idea that you're going to build a tasty but in out of old sandwich here are the two halves that you begin with two ceramic parts into which the integrated circuit chip will form the sandwich meet the two halves are glass with a material which will form the solder that glue the two halves together later a Kovar frame has been prepared in advance and cut out to the pattern necessary to connect the chip to the outside world this Kovar frame will also be placed in the middle of the sandwich along side of the chip and here is the arrangement chip in Center Cove our frame around the outside and notice that the tips of the frame here have been metallized this will form the connection to the chip directly as shown here where the lead bond wires have been placed connecting the pads on the chip to the metallized tips of the cove our frame we complete the sandwich by putting the top half of the package right on top of the frame the next operation will be to clip the ends of the frame package is now revealed in its magnificent beauty the solder glass is peeping out so that we have to clean that up a little bit by sending the part through the furnace along with many thousands of others so that the solder glass is all melted in and neatly arranged in place this is the finished dual inline package now that the circuit has been packaged we must again test it substantially before we would dare ship it to the user first is a series of electrical tests many of which use special test equipment which is again built from integrated circuits many of the tests made on the integrated circuits now duplicate those tests which were made on the wafers in addition to these tests which duplicate those which were made before we must make some special tests such as frequency response of a linear amplifier or switching speed of the digital circuit before we would dare ship the unit we can't make these tests on the wafer State due to the limitations of the test equipment through the probes in addition to these electrical tests we make a variety of mechanical tests such as shock vibration and acceleration finally we make a set of temperature tests running the unit at high temperature and at low temperature to ensure that the unit will work dependably in service now let's look into some of the things that we can do with integrated circuits but first a commercial the past year so Fairchild has been publishing a series of applications notes on integrated circuits if you read the design journals you might have seen one if the guy ahead of you didn't tear it out they talked about the switch to integrated circuits how to design them in when to use them which ones that costs basic design rules a pretty complete short course then on the back of each sheet we've covered a specific industrial application an XY controller a tape reader and display cyclo converter a dozen ideas [Music] but if you're really serious you'll have to read the book it covers all the IC families Digital right here hybrid memory customer it tells about packaging testing and of course how to order I cease altogether that's about a hundred pages of fresh information on integrated circuits we'll send it to you of your writers got a pencil Fairchild TV briefing box 10:58 Mountain View California we send you the whole stack by return mail now that we've talked about how to design build and test integrated circuits let's look at some of the functions which are available now in integrated circuit form here is a list of readily available digital circuit functions this list includes about all the circuits which are needed to build the electronics part of a digital computer this list of linear functions includes a large variety of things as you probably know operational amplifiers for example are rather precise amplifiers that are used as the major building block of analog computers the voltage comparator is a circuit which very accurately compares which of two voltages is the larger you know it's exciting to think that all of these functions are here today they can be used they're available and it's even more exciting when you consider the number of applications that these can be put to you couldn't even begin to make a list of all of them actually the uses of integrated circuits are limited only by those who are designing these uses let's take a deeper look into some of the present day applications of integrated circuits one of the many industrial companies using integrated circuits today is Burroughs corporation at Burroughs integrated circuits in dual inline packages are inserted in circuit boards automatically affording more efficient production using this machine which is proprietary with Burroughs a single integrated circuit can be installed for about the same cost it previously took to install a discrete component in order to automate the entire manufacturing process Burroughs uses other advanced techniques such as slow soldering this guarantees reliable connections to each integrated circuit in addition computerized wire wrapping machines are used to make the backplane interconnections so that the inherent reliability of the integrated design isn't compromised the machine automatically cuts each wire to the correct length strips the ends routes the wires and makes the connections meanwhile each completed circuit board is tested individually finally circuit boards are installed in the computer frame and the completed system is thoroughly tested wells is now committed to integrated circuits and in fact recently placed one of the largest single orders ever placed for these devices or burrows integrated circuits provide a significant cost reduction and a proven increase in reliability both of which are real benefits to burroughs customers stromberg-carlson is another company committed to integrated circuits their data products division is now manufacturing the first in a line of new stromberg-carlson products built with ICS integrated circuits in this case until five packages both metal and plastic were used in the SC 1100 because of their low cost size reliability and a stronger Carlson says because integrated circuits are here to stay the SC 1100 system consists of up to 18 desk top interrogators like this one which are handled by a single station control unit which in turn ties into the computer memory the operator asks the computer a coded question on the interrogator the computer responds with the requested information almost instantly for instance with an employee personnel record this is the model 388 am/fm stereo receiver built by HH Scot it's only one of a new line of hi-fi components in which linear integrated circuits replace discrete transistors Scot engineers have chosen ICS for one specific purpose better performance more stations can be pulled in with less noise and interference which stations become loud and clear and outside interference is drastically reduced but there are other benefits too a total of 37 discrete components in the receivers if' strip have been replaced by only four icees this new approach to circuit design promises even more dramatic new products from the people at H H Scott we've seen some examples of how industry is putting integrated circuits to work today but how about the future well that's a very exciting part of the story research has constantly gone on to find new ways to use integrated circuits not only in the R&D labs of semiconductor manufacturers but in the universities like here at the solid-state electronics laboratory of Stanford University in Palo Alto the facilities you see here in this integrated circuits lab are made available by funds from many industrial organizations our lab at Stanford is a miniature of the production facilities you've seen in industry it was built with the help of contributions from the majority of our nation's semiconductor manufacturers right now we're working in several areas we do basic research in integrated circuit technology we're doing circuit research using the unique capabilities of integrated circuits we also develop devices which incorporate ICS and we conduct research in several peripheral areas as an example of our research in IC technology we're studying new ways for getting impurities into semiconductors normally this is done by diffusion we do the same thing by ion implantation this machine takes individual ions and accelerates them ramming them into semiconductor material much the same as you would shoot a bullet into a bale of hay right now this is a much more expensive process than diffusion but it's a different technique here we're not interested so much in developing the technique as we are learning the fundamentals how heavily can you don't materials and what kinds of materials can you dope this way let's look at an example in the field of medical electronics here we're using IC technology to develop an array find probes which a neurologist can implant down in a living brain to study the potential at different points on a single neuron here you're looking at one of the masks prepared by the student doing this research we're developing probes using the same technology as for the metallization patterns on ICS the probes will probably be of gold this would have been impossible before I see technology one of the most dramatic devices being developed is this reading aid for the blind this is a reading device in which ordinary printed material is converted to a tactile image which is presented by a closely spaced array of 48 piezo electric reads by resting his finger on the vibrating reads the blind person can sense a vibrating and grainy facsimile of the material being viewed the great advantage is that this machine enables a blind person to read the printed page this version is relatively large even though it incorporates integrated circuits ultimately 170 by 90 mill chip will take care of all the necessary electronics to drive one vibrating read certainly integrated circuits are used in many present-day applications but we mustn't forget one very important factor and that is the reliability of an integrated circuit it is a reliable device in the industry we've logged almost 80 million element hours without a failure that's reliability we have considered many different things regarding integrated circuits one question which we might ask is why do people care about integrated service well there are many reasons certainly one of them is the reliability factor that we were just considering the second one is the fact that they are inexpensive even today it is often less expensive to do a function with integrated circuits than it is with separate discrete components the fact that they are small is important this board there contains many functions many many more functions that we could get in this volume otherwise finally there are new functions which can be achieved with integrated circuits that just plain couldn't be achieved any other way Perrie we've considered a large variety of topics on this program I'm wondering if you'd be willing to summarize it for us yes let's summarize we started out by telling you what an integrated circuit is this is an integrated circuit it's a piece of silicon into which have been built all of the necessary components to perform an electronic function the piece of silicon and a blow-up picture looks like this all of the functions are there we've taken you through the design and building of an integrated circuit from a circuit diagram through masking to wafer processing and finally on to the final packaging of an integrated circuit we showed you that it takes a lot of extensive testing to prove out an integrated circuit and finally you've seen a lot of the uses both present day and future uses for integrated circuits hopefully we've given you some ideas on how you can put integrated circuits to work or you [Music]

Channel: Futurology — An Optimistic Future

Views: 398,873

Keywords: computing, technology, software, binary, programmable, CPU, RAM, transistor, vacuum tube, integrated circuit, IBM, compiler, assembly, Fortran, Cobal, BASIC, Moore Law, Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace, ENIAC, EDVAC, abacus, digital, Alan Turing, Von Neumann, coding, Colossus, punched card, John Atanasoff, Konrad Zuse, engineer, machine learning, Charles Babbage, singularity, history, computation, Blaise Pascal, Leibniz, Pascaline, information age

Id: ZBZnSteT72A

Length: 59min 19sec (3559 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2017