How Can We Provide a Detailed Description of the Chip Structure?

We need to comprehend two things before we can explain semiconductor chips. A semiconductor is one, and a chip is the other.

Semiconductor:

A substance that has a conductivity that falls somewhere between an insulator and conductor at room temperature is said to be semiconductor. Insulators are typically words used to describe low conductivity materials like coal, man-made crystals, amber, ceramic, etc. Conductors are metals that have a higher conductivity, such as gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, aluminum, etc. The most recent discovery of semiconductor materials is in comparison to conductors and insulators. The industry didn't start paying attention to semiconductors until the 1930s, when the material purification technology was improved. Common semiconductor materials include silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, etc., and silicon is the most influential one in commercial applications among various semiconductor materials.

Chip:

Chip, also known as microchip, integrated circuit. It refers to a silicon chip containing integrated circuits, which is very small in size. Generally speaking, a chip generally refers to all semiconductor components, and is a circuit module that integrates various electronic components on a silicon board to achieve a specific function. It is the most important part of electronic equipment, undertaking the functions of computing and storage. Widely used in almost all electronic equipment such as military industry and civilian use.

At this point, you probably have a simple understanding of semiconductors and chips. Next, let's talk about semiconductor chips. What is a semiconductor chip? Under normal circumstances, semiconductors, integrated circuits, and chips can be equated, because they are talking about the same thing. The semiconductor is a kind of material, which is divided into four categories in the table. Since the proportion of integrated circuits is very high, exceeding 80%, the industry is accustomed to referring to the semiconductor industry as the integrated circuit industry. The chip is the carrier of the integrated circuit. In a broad sense, we equate the chip with the integrated circuit. So for Xiaobai, just remember that when chips, integrated circuits, and semiconductors appear, don't panic, they are the same thing. The internal structure of the semiconductor chip Although the semiconductor chip is very small. But the internal structure is very complex, especially it's core micro- units with tens of thousands of transistors. Let's explain in detail the internal structure of the semiconductor chip integrated circuit. Generally, we use the structural hierarchy from large to small to understand integrated circuits, which will be better understood.

( 1) System level Let's take the mobile phone as an example. The whole mobile phone is a complex circuit system. It can play games, make calls, listen to music, and beep. Its internal structure is composed of multiple semiconductor chips and the interconnection of resistors, inductors, and capacitors, which is called the system level.( Of course, with the development of technology, the technology of building an entire system on a chip has also appeared for many years SoC technology)

2) The module level is divided into many functional modules in the whole system to perform their duties. Some manage power, some are responsible for communication, some are responsible for display, some are responsible for sound, some are responsible for commanding the overall calculation, and so on. We call it module level. Every module here is a huge field, which gathers the crystallization of countless human wisdom and supports many companies.

( 3) Register Transfer Level( RTL) So what is each module made of? Take the digital circuit module( which is responsible for logic operations and handles discrete 0s and 1s) as an example, which accounts for a relatively large proportion of the entire system. It is composed of registers and combinational logic circuits. A register is a circuit structure that can temporarily store logic values, and it needs a clock signal to control the length of time the logic values are stored. In practical applications, we need a clock to measure the length of time, and a clock signal is also needed in the circuit to make overall arrangements. The clock signal is a periodic stable rectangular wave. In reality, one movement per second is our basic time scale, and one cycle of rectangular wave oscillation in the circuit is a time scale in their world. The circuit components act accordingly to fulfill their obligations according to this time scale. What is combinatorial logic? It is a combination of many "and( AND), or( OR), not( NOT)" logic gates. For example, two light bulbs in series, each with a switch, only when both switches are turned on, the light will be on, this is called AND logic. A complex functional module is composed of many regions.

According to the order of "transistor -" chip -" circuit board", we can finally get the core components of electronic products circuit board.