ABSTRACT
In less than four decades the advances in microelectronics shows the rapid growth of the digital integrated circuit (IC) technology from small scale integration (SSI) through medium scale integration (MSI), large scale integration (LSI), very large scale integration (VLSI) to ultra large scale integration (ULSI). Now the technology is tending toward giant scale integration (GSI), where millions of gate equivalent circuits can be integrated on a single chip. The reliability of the use of ICs has improved because of reduction of power consumption, cost, and overall size of the digital systems. The only drawback of the ICs is that they cannot handle very large voltage and electrical devices like transformers, inductors, and so on that cannot be implemented on chips. The ICs are fabricated using different technologies like RTL, TTL, ECL, CMOS, and so on.
