Why are chips so difficult to make?
In the digital age, all of us cannot live without chips. Our computers, mobile phones, and even our cars are equipped with a large number of chips. As long as one chip cannot function properly, it will affect our lives, ranging from phone failure to car loss of control
While enjoying the convenience of chips, have we ever thought about why chips are so important in the digital age? Why is its development and manufacturing so difficult? This also starts with the history of chips.
From vacuum tubes to transistors
In ancient times, it was ruled by tying ropes. Since the birth of human civilization, computing has become an inseparable part of our lives. From the balance of income and expenditure of a family to the economic direction of a country, these numbers that determine the fate of a family or country all need to be calculated. People have developed many calculation tools for this, such as an abacus that moves beads up and down, or a calculator that can press buttons to obtain the desired results.
As our demand for computing continues to increase, manpower based computing methods quickly encounter bottlenecks. The war gave birth to early computers: Turing relied on the principles of electric mechanics to develop computers that cracked Germany's Enigma code; In order to crack the Lorentz code in Germany, the UK developed the "Colossus computer", which is also considered the world's first programmable digital computer. These machines can easily perform calculations that are difficult or even impossible to achieve solely by humans.
The core of the operation of the giant computer is the "vacuum tube", which looks like a huge light bulb with some metal wires inside. After being powered on, these metal wires have two different destinies: with or without electricity, which corresponds to 1 and 0 in the binary system. Using these two numbers, theoretically, any calculation can be performed. Our current online virtual world can also be roughly understood as born on countless 1s and 0s.
Although computer functions based on vacuum tubes are powerful, they also have their own multiple limitations. On the one hand, the volume of the vacuum tube is too large. The ENIAC machine manufactured by the University of Pennsylvania has over 17000 vacuum tubes, occupying a large area and consuming a considerable amount of electricity; On the other hand, these massive digital vacuum tubes also bring various hidden dangers. According to statistics, on average every 2 days, this machine experiences a vacuum tube malfunction, and each troubleshooting takes at least 15 minutes. In order to stabilize the production of various 1's and 0's, people began to search for alternatives to vacuum tubes.
The well-known Bell Labs made a breakthrough, and their choice was semiconductors - the conductivity of this material is based on conductors (such as copper wires that allow current to pass freely) and insulators (completely non-conductive, such as glass). Under specific conditions, its conductive properties can change. For example, we have all heard of "silicon" (Si), which itself is not conductive, but as long as certain other materials are added, it can have conductivity. The name 'semi' conductor comes from this.
William Shockley from Bell Labs first proposed a theory that adding an electric field near semiconductor materials can change their conductivity, but he was unable to prove his theory through experiments.
Inspired by this theory, two of his colleagues, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, manufactured a semiconductor device called a "transistor" two years later. Shockley, who was unwilling to be surpassed, developed a newer transistor a year later. Ten years later, the three of them won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions in the field of transistors. With the continuous expansion of the transistor field and the arrival of more new members, they have also become the cornerstone of the digital age.
