An integrated circuit (IC), also known as chip or microchip, is a structure of small dimensions of semiconductor material, a few square millimeters of area on which electronic circuits are generally manufactured by photolithography and which is secured in an encapsulated plastic or ceramic. The encapsulation has appropriate metallic conductors for connection between the IC and a printed circuit.
Integrated circuit is a pill or solid chip found in all or most of the necessary electronics embedded in a resin, to perform some function. These components are mostly transistors, although they also contain resistors, diodes, capacitors, etc.
Considering the level of integration (number of components) integrated circuits are classified as:
SSI (Small Scale Integration) small level: less than 12
MSI (Medium Scale Integration) means: 12-99
LSI (Large Scale Integration) Large: 100-9999
VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) large: from 10 000 to 99 999
ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) ultra large: not less than 100 000
As for the integrated functions, the circuits are classified into two groups:
Analog integrated circuits.
They can consist from simple encapsulated together without bonding between them until complete devices such as amplifiers, oscillators or even complete Radio receivers’ transistors.
Digital integrated circuits.
They can range from simple logic gates (AND, OR, NOT) to the most complicated as microprocessors.
