Understanding Silicon Chip

Variation A

Electronic equipment consisting of a
small crystal of a silicon semiconductor
fabricated to carry out a number of
electronic functions in an integrated
circuit.

Variation B

A microchip.

Variation C

Integrated circuit.

Silicon

A nonmetallic chemical element in
the carbon family of elements. Silicon - atomic
symbol "Si" - is the second most abundant
element in the earth's crust, surpassed
only by oxygen. Silicon does not occur
uncombined in nature. Sand and almost
all rocks contain silicon combined with
oxygen, forming silica. Silicon is the
basic material used to make computer chips,
transistors, silicon diodes and other
electronic circuits and switching devices
because its atomic structure makes the
element an ideal semiconductor. Silicon
is commonly mixed with other elements,
such as boron, phosphorous and arsenic,
to alter its conductive properties.

Chip

A small piece of semiconducting material
(usually silicon) on which an integrated
circuit is embedded. A typical chip is less
than ¼-square inches and can contain millions
of electronic components (transistors).
Computers consist of many chips placed
on electronic boards called printed
circuit boards.

There are divers types of chips. For example,
CPU chips (also called microprocessors) contain
an entire processing unit, whereas memory chips
contain blank memory.

The three most common chips are:

DIPs :

Dual in-line packages are the traditional
buglike chips that have anywhere from 8 to
40 legs, evenly divided in two rows.

PGAs :

Pin-grid arrays are square chips in
which the pins are arranged in concentric
squares.

SIPs :

Single in-line packages are chips
that have just one row of legs in a
straight line like a comb.

In addition to these types of chips,
there are also single in-line memory
modules (SIMMs), which consist of up to
nine chips packaged as a single unit.

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