ABSTRACT
Over the past few decades, complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology has evolved at a remarkable rate and has witnessed the emergence of denser and faster integrated circuits with high yield and reliability. Starting with a few transistors on a single chip in the early 1970s, it has increased to a billion transistors in a span of 40 years. The demands for greater integration and higher performance are the key factors driving the CMOS technology, and the result has been a tremendous expansion in technology and communication market, including the market associated with high-performance microprocessors as well as low static power applications such as wireless systems. It all started when the first transistor was invented in 1947 by Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley at the Bell Laboratory. It was followed by the introduction of the bipolar junction transistor (BJT) in 1949 by Shockley. The biggest revolution happened when Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments first made the monolithic integrated circuit in 1958. This was a significant breakthrough in the semiconductor technology, and Kilby was later awarded the Nobel Prize in 2000 for what proved to be a watershed development for the microelectronics industry. In 1960, the first commercial IC was introduced by Fairchild Corporation, followed by TTL IC in 1962. Since then, technology has progressed swiftly and steadily at a remarkable pace to pave the way for ever more powerful, cost-effective, and energy-efficient products.
