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Contents
1 Introduction
2 History of Transistor
2.1 Overview of Semiconductor and Transistor History
2.1.1 The invention of the first Junction Transistor
2.1.2 The invention of the First FET transistor
2.1.3 The Invention of the First Integrated Circuit
3 Types of Transistor
3.1 Abundancy
3.2 Transistor Count
4 Conclusion
References








Introduction


The changes in a computer technology rapidly increased through few decades which is heavily influenced by the introduction of CPU transistor. Nowadays beside computers everything has a CPU such as mobile phone, smart TVs, plenty of standalone electronic devices with a cheapest price. After the replacement of an older vacuum tubes technology by a transistor, the microprocessor or CPU technology grows rapidly. Since the vacuum tubes were unreliable, bulky and generated a lot of heat, too. Especially for computer technology Vacuum tubes were unpractical.
Scientist were brainstorming the idea of semiconductor technology for a long time until the invention of the transistor announced by the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1948.
Since then many types have been designed. Transistors are very cheap, durable, and small and have a high resistance to physical shock. The vast majority of transistors now are built as parts of IC. Transistors are used in virtually all electronic devices, including radio and television receivers, computers, and space vehicles and guided missiles.
Today's computer technology is the modest achievement in human History. The reason for the radical grows in computer technology is the invention of semiconductor transistor from germanium and later from silicon. Imagine the most abundant element from the earth's soil, silicon dioxide, the silicon transistor have made today's modernization real.
In this report the history of semiconductor, the invention and improvement of semiconductor transistor throughout the last seven decades are presented. Additionally the main type of transistor and application areas will be discussed. Beside these theoretical background the main goal of this report is to present the CPU technology with respect to transistor technology.

History of Transistor

Overview of Semiconductor and Transistor History


During World War II most scientists are occupied by war related technology such as radar. When a war ended most military related laboratories disbanded and scientist returned to researches other than military efforts. Right after the war, In January 1946, Marvin Kelly put together a group of engineers and physicist at Bell Labs to create a solid state electronics. The team included Walter Brattain, John Bardeen, John Pearson, Bert Moore, and Robert Gibney headed by Bill Shockley and Stanley Morgan [1].
Right at the beginning the team made important decision and effort directing to the two simplest semiconductor silicon and germanium.  Additionally Shockley independently revived the idea of a field-effect device. They started investigating the nature of surface states and how to eliminate the effects. If the context of the knowledge of technology and science at the time of discovery considered, transistor is the greatest discovery in the history of human modernization. [2]
There are few invention that contributes to the discovery of transistor at Bell Labs

  • Invention of solid state rectifier in 1874 by Ferdinand Braun
  • Theoretical development of quantum mechanics in 1920's played important role toward solid-state electronics. The clear understanding the difference between a metal, insulator and semiconductors are developed due to quantum mechanics
  • The invention of the concept of a field effect transistor (FET) in 1926 by Lilienfeld. Lilienfeld believed applying a voltage to a poorly conducting material would change its conductivity and thereby achieve amplification.


While those team of scientist tried to invent a better solid effect rectifier and amplifier electronics to replace vacuum tube transistor is discovered for the first time. Finally by late 1947, Bardeen and Brattain managed to make the first working point-contact transistor. Figure 1 shows the first transistor: [3]


Figure. 1 shows the first transistor (reprinted from [1].)
Figure 1 shows the first complicated transistor with germanium crystal base and two leads formed on the tip of the germanium crystal. The tip a metal coat, wax and another metal coat layer on it. The inside metal was the collector and outside metal was the emitter. The wax in the middle is a layer of insulation [1].

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the first Subheading (reprinted from [1].)

The invention of the first Junction Transistor


Shockley, great creative burst, proceeded to write down the theory of the bipolar junction transistor, by injecting minority carrier into a semiconductor. John Shive improved the first design by putting the emitter and collector on the opposite sides of the crystal to eliminate surface paths between collector and emitter. John Shive experiment verified shockley's junction transistor theory. [4]
By April 1950, a couple of years later, Brattain, Shockley, Teal, and Sparks actually succeeded in growing the first junction npn device. In fact, the device behaved essentially as predicted by Shockley's theory. Figure. 4 is a picture of this device. The big problem, of course, in making a true bipolar semiconductor device was the need for a very thin base region. As we all know, today the base has to be on the scale of micrometers.

Figure 3. The first Junction transistor (reprinted from [1].)
By 1952, a Bell Labs team had developed a means of making high purity silicon and germanium crystals. This was done by a process called zone refining that was invented by Bill Pfann.

The invention of the First FET transistor


By 1952, Ian Ross and George Dacey succeeded in making a unipolar device. This first unipolar device was a precursor to today's FET. This configuration was made using junctions as gates rather than having the metal oxide gate structure that we have today. This junction FET worked in a pinch-off mode rather than enhancement or depletion mode as in a planar insulated gate device. [5]
Discovering that the natural oxide of silicon that occurs when you put it in a high oxygen environment has a tremendously good interface between it and pure silicon. The silicon dioxide-silicon interface is sufficiently free of surface states that you can actually make an FET. In 1955, Duane Kahng joined Bell Labs at about that time, and he fabricated the first field-effect transistor using Atalla's oxidation process. But, this turned out to be a pretty poor device.
It took until the early 1970's, 15 years before planar FET's came into common use. The delay was due to the difficulties encountered controlling impurities. This was a materials problem, and for a long time people did not realize that sodium was the killer. Specifically, any sodium at the interface between silicon and silicon dioxide had devastating effects. It was not understood how to isolate the devices from the sodium. It was a major problem to understand the purification of this interface. As you know, we now have the very highest quality silicon-silicon dioxide interface. Today we have impurities that are less than one part in one billion, which is a tremendous accomplishment. [6]

The Invention of the First Integrated Circuit


In 1957, Texas Instruments developed the mesa transistor. Then came some very important events in the late 1950's. Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments developed the first IC using these mesa techniques. Kilby used discrete wire interconnection. See Fig. 4 for a picture of that device. You can see it really was a simple device by our standards today. It has one transistor, a capacitor, and resistor all together on a piece of silicon. This is the first integrated circuit, not really large scale integration. The next thing that happened was at Fairchild, where Jean Hoerni developed the planar process for transistors. In particular, the planar process offered the capability for doing thin-film metal interconnection. Bob Noyce, using this process, made an IC using vapor deposited metal connections, which became public in 1959. [7]


Figure 4. Jack Kilby's first integrated circuit (reprinted from [1].)

Types of Transistor


Transistor can be categorized based on semiconductor material used, structure, and power rating operation frequency, amplification factor, electrical polarity or application. Although one of the above basis categorizes transistor, the major types falls to junction transistor and field effect transistor (FET) categorized mainly based on the structure.
The transistor is an arrangement of semiconductor materials that share common physical boundaries. Materials most commonly used are silicon, gallium-arsenide, and germanium, into which impurities have been introduced by a process called "doping." In n -type semiconductors the impurities or dopants result in an excess of electrons, or negative charges; in p -type semiconductors the dopants lead to a deficiency of electrons and therefore an excess of positive charge carriers or "holes" [8].

  1. Junction Transistor


The transferred resistance or transistor is a multi-junction device that is capable of Current gain, Voltage gain, and Signal power gain Invented in 1948 by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley. Contains three adjoining, alternately doped semiconductor regions: Emitter (E), Base (B), and Collector (C) The middle region, base, is very thin compared to the diffusion length of minority carriers Two kinds: npn and pnp.
The Bipolar junction transistor is an active device that works as a voltage controlled current source and whose basic action is control of current at one terminal by controlling voltage applied at other two terminals. Emitter is heavily doped compared to collector. So, emitter and collector are not interchangeable. The base width is small compared to the minority carrier diffusion length. If the base is much larger, then this will behave like back-to-back diodes.[9]

Figure 4. NPN and PNP Junction transistor


  1. FET transistor


FET transistor commonly called as unipolar transistor since it contains one type of carrier electrons or holes (unipolar). The conventional bipolar transistor has two type of current carriers of both polarities (majority and minority) and FET has only one type of current carriers, p or n (holes or electrons). The BJT is current controlled and FET is voltage controlled current between two other terminals.
Field effect transistor is a unipolar transistor, which acts as a voltage controlled current device and is a device in which current at two electrodes is controlled by the action of an electric field at another electrode. Field effect transistor is a device in which the current is controlled and transported by carriers of one polarity (majority) only and an electric field near the one terminal controls the current between other two.
Family of FET

  1. Junction FET (JFET):


JFET is a unipolar transistor, which acts as a voltage controlled current device and is a device in which current at two electrodes is controlled by the action of an electric field at a pn junction. In addition to the channel, a JFET contains two ohmic contacts: the source and the drain. The JFET will conduct current equally well in either direction and the source and drain leads are usually interchangeable.
JFET consists of a piece of high resistivity semiconductor material (usually Si) which constitutes a channel for the majority carrier flow and a gate. Conducting semiconductor channel between two ohmic contacts source & drain. The magnitude of this current is controlled by a voltage applied to a gate, which is a reverse biased. (Ohmic contacts means following Ohm's law current proportional to V under constant physical condition. [9]

  1. MOSFET:


Field effect transistor is a unipolar transistor, which acts as a voltage controlled current device and is a device in which current at two electrodes drain and source is controlled by the action of an electric field at another electrode gate having in between semiconductor and metal very a thin metal oxide layer.[9]

  1. CPU Transistor Technology


CPU architecture design, implementation and form have changed through time. However fundamental operation principle remain almost unchanged. CPU has the following most principal components:

  • ALU(arithmetic logic unit): performs logic and arithmetic operations
  • Registers: provide operands to ALU and stores the result
  • Control unit: fetches instruction from memory and execute
  • memory: RAM or ROM, internal or external memory

All these principal components are made from different types of transistor in order to perform their objectives.
Nowadays modern CPU are Microprocessor. A microprocessor is a single integrated circuit or IC chip that contains CPU, memory, peripheral interfaces and other components. The most interesting change in CPU and computer technology over the course of history are abundancy and the changes in transistor count.

Abundancy


The term abundancy especially in transistor technology it is impressing in two ways. Firstly transistor is made from the most abundant compound called silica (silicon dioxide) which is 59% of earth's crust and the main constituent of more than 95 percent of the known rocks. Who would imagine that the most abundant component of the earth crust is a tool to create transistor and the most interesting reason for today's modernization? Secondly when the transistor count per inch increased, transistor abundancy per IC chip made it possible to change the CPU and computer technology architecture design and implementation to grow rapidly.

Transistor Count


Transistor count is the most common tool to measure the size of IC chip. It approximately follows the most known Moore's law. According to Moore's Law, the transistor count of the integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. The table in appendix one shows the change in microprocessor technology, which directly related to CPU technology, with respect to transistor count through history.

Conclusion


While writing this report I have learned the technological changes in transistor history. Beside the change in physical characteristics of transistor, the most important changes are toward the count of transistor. Changes in transistor technology has a direct effect on CPU technology, therefore it can be concluded that the reason for modern computer system improvement is also the change in transistor technology.

References

 

  1. William F. Brinkman, Douglas E. Haggan, and William W. Troutman, "A History of the Invention of the Transistor and Where It Will Lead Us" IEEE journal of solid-state circuit, vol. 32, NO. 12, DEC 1997.
  2. M. Riordan and L. Hoddeson Crystal Fire the Birth of the Information Age. New York: Norton, p. 102.
  3. "A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System—Electronics Technology (1925–1975)," p. 2, F. M. Smits, Ed
  4. W. Shockley, M. Sparks, and G. K. Teal, "P-N junction transistors," Phys., Rev. 83, July 1, 1951, pp. 151–162.
  5. G. C. Dacey and I. M. Ross, "Unipolar field-effect transistor," Proc. IRE 41, Aug. 1953, pp. 970–979.
  6. D. Kahng and M. M. Atalla, "Silicon-silicon dioxide field induced surface device," presented at Solid State Device Research Conf., Pittsburgh, PA, June 1960.
  7. J. A. Hoerni, "Planar silicon diodes and transistors," IRE Trans. Electron Devices, Mar. 8, 1961, p. 178; also presented at Professional Group on Electron Devices Meeting, Washington, D.C., Oct. 1960.
  8. Types of Transistor

URL: http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/transistor-types-transistors.html
Accessed date: 20 April 2015

  1. Transistor and FET Characteristics

URL: http://www.dauniv.ac.in/downloads/Electronic%20Devices/09EDCJFETLesson09.pdf
Accessed date: 20 April 2015

  1. Table of Transistor Count

    Processor

    Transistor count

    Date of intr.

    Designer

    Process

    Area

    Intel 4004

    2,300

    1971

    Intel

    10 µm

    12 mm²

    Intel 8008

    3,500

    1972

    Intel

    10 µm

    14 mm²

    MOS Technology 6502

    3,510[5]

    1975

    MOS Technology

    8 μm

    21 mm²

    Motorola 6800

    4,100

    1974

    Motorola

    6 μm

    16 mm²

    Intel 8080

    4,500

    1974

    Intel

    6 μm

    20 mm²

    RCA 1802

    5,000

    1974

    RCA

    5 μm

    27 mm²

    Intel 8085

    6,500

    1976

    Intel

    3 μm

    20 mm²

    Zilog Z80

    8,500

    1976

    Zilog

    4 μm

    18 mm²

    Motorola 6809

    9,000

    1978

    Motorola

    5 μm

    21 mm²

    Intel 8086

    29,000

    1978

    Intel

    3 μm

    33 mm²

    Intel 8088

    29,000

    1979

    Intel

    3 μm

    33 mm²

    WDC 65C02

    11,500[6]

    1981

    WDC

    3 µm

    6 mm²

    Intel 80186

    55,000

    1982

    Intel

    3 μm

    60 mm²

    Motorola 68000

    68,000

    1979

    Motorola

    3.5 μm

    44 mm²

    Intel 80286

    134,000

    1982

    Intel

    1.5 µm

    49 mm²

    WDC 65C816

    22,000[7]

    1983

    WDC

     

    9 mm²

    Motorola 68020

    200,000

    1984

    Motorola

    2 μm

     

    Intel 80386

    275,000

    1985

    Intel

    1.5 µm

    104 mm²

    ARM 1

    25,000[8]

    1985

    Acorn

     

     

    Novix NC4016

    16,000[9]

    1985[10]

    Harris Corporation

    3 μm[11]

     

    ARM 2

    25,000

    1986

    Acorn

     

     

    TI Explorer's 32-bit Lisp machine chip

    553,000

    1987

    Texas Instruments

     

     

    Intel i960

    250,000

    1988

    Intel

    0.6 µm

     

    Intel 80486

    1,180,235

    1989

    Intel

    1 µm

    173 mm²

    ARM 3

    300,000[8]

    1989

    Acorn

     

     

    R4000

    1,350,000

    1991

    MIPS

    1.0 µm

    213 mm²

    ARM 6

    30,000

    1991

    ARM

     

     

    Pentium

    3,100,000

    1993

    Intel

    0.8 µm

    294 mm²

    ARM 7

    578,977

    1994

    ARM

     

    68.51 mm²

    Pentium Pro

    5,500,000

    1995

    Intel

    0.5 µm

    307 mm²

    AMD K5

    4,300,000

    1996

    AMD

    0.5 µm

    251 mm²

    Pentium II Klamath

    7,500,000

    1997

    Intel

    0.35 µm

    195 mm²

    Pentium II Deschutes

    7,500,000

    1998

    Intel

    0.25 µm

    113 mm²

    AMD K6

    8,800,000

    1997

    AMD

    0.35 µm

    162 mm²

    Pentium III Katmai

    9,500,000

    1999

    Intel

    0.25 µm

    128 mm²

    Pentium III Coppermine

    21,000,000

    2000

    Intel

    180 nm

    80 mm²

    Pentium II Mobile Dixon

    27,400,000

    1999

    Intel

    180 nm

    180 mm²

    Pentium III Tualatin

    45,000,000

    2001

    Intel

    130 nm

    81 mm²

    AMD K6-III

    21,300,000

    1999

    AMD

    0.25 µm

    118 mm²

    AMD K7

    22,000,000

    1999

    AMD

    0.25 µm

    184 mm²

    Pentium 4 Willamette

    42,000,000

    2000

    Intel

    180 nm

    217 mm²

    Pentium 4 Northwood

    55,000,000

    2002

    Intel

    130 nm

    145 mm²

    Pentium 4 Prescott

    112,000,000

    2004

    Intel

    90 nm

    110 mm²

    Pentium 4 Prescott-2M

    169,000,000

    2005

    Intel

    90 nm

    143 mm²

    Pentium 4 Cedar Mill

    184,000,000

    2006

    Intel

    65 nm

    90 mm²

    Atom

    47,000,000

    2008

    Intel

    45 nm

    24 mm²

    Barton

    54,300,000

    2003

    AMD

    130 nm

    101 mm²

    AMD K8

    105,900,000

    2003

    AMD

    130 nm

    193 mm²

    Itanium 2 McKinley

    220,000,000

    2002

    Intel

    180 nm

    421 mm²

    Cell

    241,000,000

    2006

    Sony/IBM/Toshiba

    90 nm

    221 mm²

    Core 2 Duo Conroe

    291,000,000

    2006

    Intel

    65 nm

    143 mm²

    Core 2 Duo Allendale

    169,000,000

    2007

    Intel

    65 nm

    111 mm²

    Itanium 2 Madison 6M

    410,000,000

    2003

    Intel

    130 nm

    374 mm²

    AMD K10 quad-core 2M L3

    463,000,000

    2007

    AMD

    65 nm

    283 mm²

    ARM Cortex-A9

    26,000,000

    2007

    ARM

     

     

    Core 2 Duo Wolfdale3M

    230,000,000

    2008

    Intel

    45 nm

    83 mm²

    Itanium 2 with 9 MB cache

    592,000,000

    2004

    Intel

    130 nm

    432 mm²

    Core 2 Duo Wolfdale

    411,000,000

    2007

    Intel

    45 nm

    107 mm²

    Core i7 (Quad)

    731,000,000

    2008

    Intel

    45 nm

    263 mm²

    AMD K10 quad-core 6M L3

    758,000,000

    2008

    AMD

    45 nm

    258 mm²

    POWER6

    789,000,000

    2007

    IBM

    65 nm

    341 mm²

    Six-core Opteron 2400

    904,000,000

    2009

    AMD

    45 nm

    346 mm²

    16-core SPARC T3

    1,000,000,000

    2010

    Sun/Oracle

    40 nm

    377 mm²

    Apple A7 (dual-core ARM64 "mobile SoC")

    1,000,000,000

    2013

    Apple

    28 nm

    102 mm²

    Quad-core + GPU Core i7

    1,160,000,000

    2011

    Intel

    32 nm

    216 mm²

    Six-core Core i7 (Gulftown)

    1,170,000,000

    2010

    Intel

    32 nm

    240 mm²

    8-core POWER7 32M L3

    1,200,000,000

    2010

    IBM

    45 nm

    567 mm²

    8-core AMD Bulldozer

    1,200,000,000

    2012

    AMD

    32 nm

    315 mm²

    Quad-core + GPU AMD Trinity

    1,303,000,000

    2012

    AMD

    32 nm

    246 mm²

    Quad-core z196[20]

    1,400,000,000

    2010

    IBM

    45 nm

    512 mm²

    Quad-core + GPU Core i7 Ivy Bridge

    1,400,000,000

    2012

    Intel

    22 nm

    160 mm²

    Quad-core + GPU Core i7 Haswell

    1,400,000,000

    2014

    Intel

    22 nm

    177 mm²

    Dual-core Itanium 2

    1,700,000,000

    2006

    Intel

    90 nm

    596 mm²

    Six-Core Core i7 Ivy Bridge E

    1,860,000,000

    2013

    Intel

    22 nm

    256 mm²

    Duo-core + GPU Core i7 Broadwell-U

    1,900,000,000

    2015

    Intel

    14 nm

    133 mm²

    Six-core Xeon 7400

    1,900,000,000

    2008

    Intel

    45 nm

    503 mm²

    Quad-core Itanium Tukwila

    2,000,000,000

    2010

    Intel

    65 nm

    699 mm²

    Apple A8 (dual-core ARM64 "mobile SoC")

    2,000,000,000

    2014

    Apple

    20 nm

    89 mm²

    8-core POWER7+ 80 MB L3 cache

    2,100,000,000

    2012

    IBM

    32 nm

    567 mm²

    Six-core Core i7/8-core Xeon E5(Sandy Bridge-E/EP)

    2,270,000,000

    2011

    Intel

    32 nm

    434 mm²

    8-core Xeon Nehalem-EX

    2,300,000,000

    2010

    Intel

    45 nm

    684 mm²

    8-core Core i7 Haswell-E

    2,600,000,000

    2014

    Intel

    22 nm

    355 mm²

    10-core Xeon Westmere-EX

    2,600,000,000

    2011

    Intel

    32 nm

    512 mm²

    Six-core zEC12

    2,750,000,000

    2012

    IBM

    32 nm

    597 mm²

    Apple A8X (tri-core ARM64 "mobile SoC")

    3,000,000,000

    2014

    Apple

    20 nm

     

    8-core Itanium Poulson

    3,100,000,000

    2012

    Intel

    32 nm

    544 mm²

    IBM z13

    3,990,000,000

    2015

    IBM

    22 nm

    678 mm²

    12-core POWER8

    4,200,000,000

    2013

    IBM

    22 nm

    650 mm²

    15-core Xeon Ivy Bridge-EX

    4,310,000,000

    2014

    Intel

    22 nm

    541 mm²

    62-core Xeon Phi

    5,000,000,000

    2012

    Intel

    22 nm

     

    Xbox One main SoC

    5,000,000,000

    2013

    Microsoft/AMD

    28 nm

    363 mm²

    18-core Xeon Haswell-E5

    5,560,000,000

    2014

    Intel

    22 nm

    661 mm²

    SPARC M7

    >10,000,000,000

    2014

    Oracle

    20 nm

     

    IBM z13 Storage Controller

    7,100,000,000

    2015

    IBM

    22 nm

    678 mm²

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