Page 18 - Nile Explorer Issue 007
P. 18
The birth history of semiconductors can
be traced back to the invention of the
rectifier (AC-DC converter) in 1874.
Decades later, Bardeen and Brattain at
Bell Laboratories in the US invented the
point-contact transistor in 1947, and
Shockley invented the junction transis-
tor in 1948. This heralded the arrival of
the transistor era. In 1946, the Universi-
ty of Pennsylvania in the US built a
computer was so large that its vacuum
computer using the vacuum tubes. The
tubes occupied the entire building, and
it consumed a huge amount of electrici-
ty and produced a lot of heat. Later, the
innovative transistor calculator (com-
puter) was developed, and since then
computers have grown by leaps and
bounds. In 1956, the Nobel Prize in
O ur lives have become digital. An tors back into the deserved spotlight. Physics was awarded jointly to Shock-
ley, Bardeen and Brattain for their
AI’s potential market of hundreds of
Amazon Echo wakes us up and
answers questions about the weather zettabytes and trillions of dollars relies contribution to semiconductor research
and the development of the transistor.
and traffic. Google Maps tells us the best on new semiconductor architectures
way to get to a meeting. Yelp finds the and compute platforms. Making these Silicon Valley, in the southern San Fran-
best nearby restaurant. A Tweet now AI semiconductor engines will require a cisco Bay Area of California – home to
even informs us of the latest change in wildly innovative range of new materi- Apple, Facebook and Google, as well as
government policy, just as paper money als, equipment, and design methodolo- many other start-up and global technol-
is becoming antiquated the era of the gies. ogy companies – continues to be the
corona virus, where money is listed as a As we step into the dawn of AI’s poten- centre of the global semiconductor
suspected transmitter. It’s a digital tial, we can see that the coming Cogni- microchip industry. It is led by Intel,
world that we live in – and the world tive Era will drive its own exponential which developed the world’s first metal
already takes it for granted. growth curve. This is great for the world oxide semiconductor, and spurred the
The digital world only works because of – virtually every industry will be trans- development of the global home PC
the semiconductors and because of the formed, and people’s lives will get better market with the launch of its Pentium
integrated electronics manufacturing – as industry efficiencies improve made microprocessor in 1993.
supply chain which make the materials possible by AI.
and equipment that, in turn, make the But what is a semi-conductor? A semi- Technology is one of the most dynamic
chips that become the beating hearts of conductor is a material with electrical industries, as trends keep changing. The
the digital economy. properties that make it good at conduct- semiconductor industry often is the
But, semiconductors are largely invisi- ing electricity under some conditions first to feel the impact of a technology
ble – hidden away under and inside a and less good under others. Silicon and shift, as innovation starts there. In the
smart speaker, locked deep within a germanium are materials with semi last decade, and the on we have entered;
phone, buried in data centers and out of conducting properties, which include the semiconductor industry is undergo-
view. So, whenever you think of, the passing current more easily in one ing its fourth technology shift towards
internet companies like Google, direction than another, variable resis- AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Inter-
Amazon, Alibaba, Tencent, and Face- tance, and sensitivity to heat or light. net of Things. •
book who have taken most of the credit Along with gallium, silicon and germa-
for our digital world, think the nium are the materials most widely used
semi-conductor. as semiconductors in electronic devices.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing Modern electronics stems from the
everything – and bringing semiconduc- development of the transistor in 1947,
with the integrated circuit following
just over a decade later in 1958.
18 | The Nile Explorer 006
