Transistor

The micro-electronic is a speciality of the field of the electronic .

Such as its name suggests it, the micro-electronics is interested in the study and manufacture of electronics components on a micronic scale.

These components are manufactured starting from material with Semi-conducteur S (like Silicon) by means of various technologies of which the photolithography. This technology allows the integration of many electronic functions on the same piece of Silicon (or another semiconductor) and thus at a lower price. The circuits thus carried out are called chips or integrated circuits. They can be standard or specific to an application (they are then named " ASIC" : Application Specific Integrated Circuit). All discrete electronics components: the Transistor S, the condensing S, the Inductance S, the resistances, the Diode S and, of course, the Insulator S and the conducting, have their equivalent in micro-electronics.

Difference

the integrated circuits numerical S consist of logical doors (often of the thousands even of the million):

Those which count less doors ensure of the simple switching functions allowing, by assembly, the realization of switching functions to measure;
the Mémoires are among densest and henceforth ensure of the functions of Mass memory, hitherto reserved for the media magnetic S;
most complex is the Micro-processeur S, Microcontrôleur S, FPGA and DIGITAL signal processor (DSP).

the integrated circuits Analogique S include/understand primarily Transistor S of order and Amplification (much larger than the logical doors), in addition to condensing S, resistances, diodes even of inductances. Inductances are primarily used in the analogical circuits High frequency.
the mixed integrated circuits join together on the same chip of Silicium of the numerical and analogical functions.

Difficulties of integration

With the developments in the technologies of manufacture, the size of the components continues to decrease. Today (2007) of the circuits in technology 65nm are largely marketed. On a submicronic scale, certain physical effects parasite S, of no importance with more large scales, become dominating. The travel times of the signals are primarily due to the stray capacities of interconnection of the active elements and not to the time of crossing of these elements. To that a problem of Diaphonie between the metal tracks propagating is added the signals. The Bruit in 1/f becomes also important when one works with transistors of small size because of lack statistics. Lastly, the transport of the electrons in the transistor does not obey the same laws any more. Those have more evil to be thermalized on the short distance from the channel. One then speaks about hot electrons. The objective of the micro-electronic Ingénierie is to use design methods to limit these effects while improving the size, speed, the electricity consumption and the cost of the solid-state components.

Advantages

The extreme smoothness of the components generally allows, in addition to one reduction in size, of the substantial profits of electricity consumption. In addition, the possibility of producing transistors MOS with short channels makes it possible to increase their performance (Produit profit-band). Technologies recent CMOS are thus very fast while consuming much less than those based on bipolar technology .

See too

numerical electricity
electronic
electronic analogical
Integration with very large scales

External bonds

Canadian Company of micro-electronics (CMC)
Research laboratory in micro-electronics and systems (ERMETIS)
microelectronic Genius at the University from Quebec in Montreal
Cycle ISMEA (Engineer Spécialisé in Micro-electronics And Applications) of the ENSM-SE

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