Electronics: Gulliver-Size Need

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For Lilliputian Products

Medieval theologians who argued for years about the number of angels that could stand on the head of a pin never found a satisfactory answer. Contemporary scientists who are just as doggedly determined to see how much gadgetry they can cram into about the same amount of space have made remarkable progress. On a barely visible chip of silicon as small as one-twentieth of an inch square, they can now produce complex and virtually trouble-free electronic circuits containing more than 80 built-in transistors, diodes, resistors and capacitors.

These tiny devices—called integrated circuits because their components are built as inseparable parts of one solid chip—are already displacing the transistor as the glamour product of the electronics industry (see following color pages). First developed in 1958 by Texas Instruments Engineer Jack Kilby while he was tinkering in the laboratory during a hot summer vacation, integrated circuits (or ICs) did not become generally available until 1962, when design improvements and refinement of production techniques allowed electronics companies to turn out some 60,000 a year. In 1966, the industry will produce 35 million ICs worth $150 million, and even then it will be hard pressed to meet the explosive demands of its customers.

Integrated circuits are becoming one of the basic building blocks of the space age. They are vital to the electronic systems of the Minuteman II and Polaris missiles, the Navy A-7A attack bomber and the supersonic, swing-wing F-111A. They are at work in the radiation measurement system aboard Lunar Orbiter I and will be used in the Apollo Project's lunar excursion module. ICs are used in the new ground-surveillance radar system at the Atlanta airport and are being designed into most new military and commercial computers. Within the last year, the tiny chips have also begun to find their way into consumer products. Some Zenith hearing aids and RCA television sets now use integrated circuits, and General Electric will soon market an integrated-circuit clock radio.

Speed & Reliability. Though creation of the microscopic circuits marks a triumph of miniaturization for an industry that is obsessed with Lilliputian dimensions, the negligible weight and small size of the ICs (more than 9,000 will fit in a thimble) are even less important than their reliability, low cost and speed of operation.

The introduction of integrated circuits, for example, came just in time to rescue electronics engineers from the "tyranny of numbers." As electronic devices grew more complex, requiring hundreds of thousands, and even millions of separate components and interconnections, it became increasingly probable that at any given time they could be disabled by a single faulty part or connection. By the use of pretested ICs, each with scores of virtually indestructible components permanently connected within a solid chip, the probability of failure has been reduced.