ABSTRACT
The most significant application for microelectronics is the digital computer. The circuits used for digital computers are all based on very-large scale integrated silicon chips. In a dynamic random access memory, the storage cells are small capacitors. The information is stored as a charge on the capacitor. Each cell has a transistor associated for selection by the address-decoder. In static memory chips each storage cell is made up of a pair of cross-coupled transistors. Microprocessors and other integrated circuits have improved information processing significantly, but their computing power is limited. For large applications, many chips have to work together in one much more powerful processor. The complementary metal oxide semiconductor circuits are slow, because the gate capacitors have to be charged through large resistors. Size reductions will reduce the capacitances significantly without increasing the impedances. The production unit for integrated circuits is a wafer containing many chips. To produce a system, many chips have to be interconnected.
