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Fig. 2.11 First planar integrated circuit and one of modern variants of IC
it suffices to compare the first integrated circuit with the Pentium 4 processor, released
in 2000, which harbors 4.2
10
7
transistors on the surface of 224 mm
2
.
The final important step toward the creation of the modern semiconductor planar
technology was the introduction of batch fabrication of integrated circuits, when a
large number of identical circuits are made on the same substrate. This step was in
fact quite natural given the large size and high quality of silicon wafers produced at
that time (Fig.
2.12
). Anticipating a little bit, we note that the size of available
wafers grew rapidly—from wafers of ~25 mm in diameter in 1960 to 200 mm and
more in the 1990s of the last century. At the same time the wafer area per one circuit
went up from ~1 mm
2
in 1960 to ~100 mm
2
in the 1990s, with up to three million
elements in each circuit.
