半导体(芯片）发展史

什么是半导体？

半导体是导电性介于导体和绝缘体中间的一类物质。与导体和绝缘体相比，半导体材料的发现是最晚的，直到20世纪30年代，当材料的提纯技术改进以后，半导体的存在才真正被学术界认可。

半导体主要由四个组成部分组成：集成电路，光电器件，分立器件，传感器，由于集成电路又占了器件80%以上的份额，因此通常将半导体和集成电路等价。集成电路按照产品种类又主要分为四大类：微处理器，存储器，逻辑器件，模拟器件。通常我们统称他们为芯片。

提起芯片，很多人可能见过，就是一块黑色类似于小盒子的东西，它是由晶体管组成的。

什么是晶体管呢？

严格意义上讲，晶体管泛指一切以半导体材料为基础的单一元件，包括各种半导体材料制成的二极管、三极管、场效应管、可控硅等。晶体管有时多指晶体三极管。

所以我们可以知道：由半导体材料制造出了晶体管，由晶体管组成了芯片。

2. 晶体管的诞生

晶体管的发明，最早可以追溯到1929年，当时工程师利莲费尔德就已经取得一种晶体管的专利。但是，限于当时的技术水平，制造晶体管的材料达不到足够的纯度，而使其无法制造出来。

1947年12月，美国贝尔实验室的肖克利、巴丁和布拉顿组成的研究小组，研制出一种点接触型的锗晶体管。1956年，肖克利、巴丁、布拉顿三人，因发明晶体管同时荣获诺贝尔物理学奖。肖克利也被誉为晶体管之父。

芯片有如此强大的功能，为什么晶体管可以胜任呢？

我们知道，对于数字电路来讲，逻辑是其精髓所在，所有的功能归根结底，都可以说是逻辑功能。而逻辑的基本构成元素是逻辑0和逻辑1。

而晶体管恰好具备这种功能--通过电信号来控制自身开合，以开关的断开和闭合来代表0和1。

3. 历史中的八卦

当然，一味的讲原理或者讲历史就没意思了，我们来挖掘半导体发展过程中的八卦。

前面有提到过，被誉为“晶体管之父”的肖克利，出生于伦敦，三岁时随父母漂洋过海来到加州。受父母对他科学思想的灌输，考入MIT，随后获得固体物理学博士，留校任教。后来，被位于新泽西州的贝尔实验室副主任凯利来麻省“挖墙角”，将肖克利挖走了。当晶体管发明成功后，肖克利并不满足，他依然进行着不断地尝试，希望发明性能更好的晶体管，并将其商品化。

与此同时，高纯硅的工业提炼技术已成熟，用硅晶片生产的晶体管收音机也问世。在贝尔实验室工作的肖克利坐不住了，他看到了未来的商机，而现在只能看着贝尔实验室拿他的发明赚钱，并且晶体管的性能不稳定，有损个人声誉。

最后，矛盾爆发了!当然最终还是因为利益。

硅谷诞生

1955年，肖克利回到了自己的家乡圣克拉拉（Santa Clara）谷，并得到了贝克曼的支持，创办了自己的公司。

圣克拉拉位于旧金山湾区南部，与圣何塞（San Jose）[4] 、森尼韦尔（Sunnyvale）。地理位置优越环境优美；气候清新宜人；交通便利。从此，这一片狭长的山谷举世闻名。

肖克利在创办了自己的公司后，依靠自身的威望，很快招到了一批学识渊博，技术过硬的人才。此时，我们仿佛看到一家半导体商业巨头正要崛起，屹立于世界之巅，但是，总有意外发生。

硅谷八叛将

肖克利虽然是一个聪明绝顶的天才，但却不是一个好的管理者。在公司发展方向上，几乎由他一人掌控，专横独裁，而且他不知道自身的缺陷，也不接受同事的合理化建议，最终导致公司在很长一段时间里都没有产品做出来。在同事关系上，他忽略了最重要的两点--尊重与信任，肖克利通过各种办法，牢牢的将技术专利掌握在自己的手中，这种自私自利的管理方式，终将会让公司走向没落。

1957年9月18日，以诺伊斯为首的八位年轻人愤然提出离职，肖克利得知后勃然大怒，骂其曰“八叛逆”（Traitorous Eight）。

硅谷八叛将分别为：诺依斯（N. Noyce）、摩尔（R.Moore）、布兰克（J.Blank）、克莱尔（E.Kliner）、赫尔尼（J.Hoerni）、拉斯特（J.Last）、罗伯茨（S.Boberts）和格里尼克（V.Grinich）

传奇的仙童

很快，这八个人就拿到了一笔风险投资，投资人是具有远见卓识的谢尔曼 菲尔柴尔德，成立了仙童半导体（Fairchild），公司便是以投资人命名。

公司由谢尔曼 菲尔柴尔德控股，管理人为诺伊斯。在新型的管理模式下，仙童半导体快速发展，不到半年的时间里就已经开始盈利。

与此同时，仙童的两项发名专利，更使其立于世界的半导体之巅。其一是平面工艺--一种制造半导体电路的工艺方法，发明人为约翰·霍尔尼（Jean Hoerni）。

另一个发明专利便是集成电路。顾名思义，集成电路就是用一定的工艺，把一个电路中所需的晶体管、电阻、电容和电感等元件及布线互连一起，制作在一小块或几小块半导体晶片或介质基片上。

1958-1959年，来自仙童的罗伯特·诺伊斯（Robert Noyce）发明了硅集成电路。事实上，在早些时候，来自德州仪器的杰克·基尔比（Jack Kilby）发明了锗集成电路。由于两人在同一年独立且不知情的情况下分别发明了集成电路，所以两人共享集成电路发明者的荣誉。

现在，在我们眼里看来，把多个电路集成到一起而减少面积是个自然而然的事情，然后这个简单的想法，却改变了我们的世界。很多伟大的发明，往往源自一个很简单的想法。也许，即使没有这两位，依然有人会想到这个点子，但是历史只会记住最先吃螃蟹的人。

此时的仙童半导体公司风光无限，而半导体行业在那时宛若一个巨大的金矿，任凭仙童肆意挖掘。而仙童的股权大部分都在投资人谢尔曼菲尔柴尔德的手里，与此同时，仙童半导体公司的利润被不断转移到东海岸，去支持Fairchild摄影器材公司，此时仙童的员工开始坐不住了，开始了新一轮的离职创业潮。

4. 花开遍地

1968年，诺依斯（N. Noyce）和摩尔（R.Moore）从仙童离职后创办了我们所熟知的英特尔（Intel），这里的摩尔就是我们所熟知的摩尔定律的提出者。

1969年，杰里·桑德斯（J. Sanders）当时在仙童担任销售部的主任，带着7位仙童员工创办AMD。

还有许多我们所熟知的公司，比如美国国家半导体（现已被TI收购），Altera（现已被英特尔收购）等的创始人都出自仙童半导体公司。

正如江湖流传的苹果公司乔布斯形象比喻的那样：“仙童半导体公司就像个成熟了的蒲公英，你一吹它，这种创业精神的种子就随风四处飘扬了。”

随后，英特尔， TI，三星等巨头开始在世界的舞台大放异彩！

在处理器（CPU）领域，英特尔的发展史代表了处理器的发展史。1971年，英特尔推出了它的第一款处理器：4004，这是一款4位的处理器，仅包含2300个晶体管，现在来看，这款处理器简直就是个小弱，但它的诞生意义重大，实现了从0到1的突破。1978年，英特尔推出了一款16位的处理器:i8086。1979年，英特尔又推出了8088,8088是第一个成功应用于个人电脑的CPU。1982到1989年，期间又陆续推出了80286，80386，80486微处理器。1993年奔腾处理器横空出世，2005年酷睿走进大众的视野，酷睿i3，i5，i7成为PC的主流。

英特尔，AMD主要做PC,服务器的芯片。对于现在炙手可热的智能手机，处理器的竞争则更为激烈。苹果，三星，高通一直占领着高端机的市场，国内近几年半导体业强势崛起，海思，展讯可谓国内的代表。

5. 展望未来

纵观过去的半个世纪，半导体的迅猛发展为我们的科技爆炸提供了基础。当10nm的芯片已经商用，7nm,5nm制程已经接近极限的情况下，摩尔定律似乎已经开始走向终点，半导体下一个转折点在哪里，我们还不能确定，但目前量子技术的发展似乎给我们指明了方向。

随着量子通信，量子纠缠等新鲜词语开始出现在我们的视野中，量子芯片也横空出世，与传统芯片用0和1进行运算处理不同，量子芯片具备多个量子位，而不是再只有0和1两种逻辑状态，这样使得芯片的运算能力成指数增长，从而突破摩尔定律的限制。

回顾半导体发展的辉煌历史，也在一定程度上代表了人类的文明史。如果说机械的发展解放了人类的劳动力，那么半导体的发展则解放了人类的计算力。而且半导体的发展势头绝不会就此停歇，必将随着科技的发展大放异彩，对我们每个人来讲，未来的半导体，未来的世界，值得我们期待。

附：摩尔定律：集成电路芯片上所集成的晶体管数目，每隔18个月就翻一倍。History of semiconductor (chip)

What is a semiconductor?

Semiconductors are substances whoseelectrical conductivity is intermediate between conductors and insulators.Compared with conductors and insulators, the discovery of semiconductormaterials was the latest. It was not until the 1930s, when the purificationtechnology of materials was improved, that the existence of semiconductors wastruly recognized by the academic community.

Semiconductors are mainly composed of fourcomponents: integrated circuits, photoelectric devices, discrete devices andsensors. Since integrated circuits account for more than 80% of devices,semiconductors and integrated circuits are usually regarded as equivalent.Integrated circuits are divided into four main categories according to the typeof products: microprocessor, memory, logic devices, simulator parts. We usuallyrefer to them as chips.

If you think of a chip, many of you haveprobably seen it, it's a black piece of stuff that looks like a little box, andit's made of transistors.

What is a transistor?

Strictly speaking, transistor refers to allsemiconductor materials based on a single element, including a variety ofsemiconductor materials made of diode, transistor, field effect tube, siliconcontrolled, etc. Transistors sometimes refer to crystal triodes.

So we know that transistors are made ofsemiconductor materials, and transistors are made of chips.

2. The Birth of the transistor

The invention of the transistor can betraced back to 1929, when engineer Lillienfeld obtained a patent for atransistor. However, given the state of the art at the time, the materials usedto make transistors were not pure enough to make them.

In December 1947, a research team ofShockley, Bardeen and Bratton at Bell Laboratories developed a point-contactgermanium transistor. In 1956, Shockley, Bardeen and Bratton shared the NobelPrize in physics for their invention of the transistor. Shockley is also knownas the father of the transistor.

Chips have so much power, why can transistorsdo it?

As we know, logic is the essence of digitalcircuits, and all functions can be said to be logic functions after all. Thebasic building blocks of logic are logic 0 and logic 1.

Transistors do just that -- they turnthemselves on and off with electrical signals, turning on and off to representzeros and ones.

3. Gossip from history

Of course, blindly talking about principlesor history is not interesting, let's dig the gossip in the process ofsemiconductor development.

Shockley, known as the "father of thetransistor," was born in London and moved to California with his parentswhen he was three. Educated in science by his parents, he went to MIT, where heearned a doctorate in solid-state physics and stayed on the faculty. He waslater lured away by Kelly, deputy director of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey,who came to Massachusetts. When the transistor was invented, Shockley was notsatisfied. He kept trying to invent better transistors and commercialize them.

At the same time, the industrial refiningof high-purity silicon has matured, and transistor radios made from siliconwafers have been developed. Shockley couldn't sit still at Bell LABS. He saw afuture business opportunity. Now he could only watch Bell LABS make money fromhis invention, and the transistor's performance was unstable and damaging tohis reputation.

Finally, the conflict erupted! Ultimately,of course, it's about profit.

Born in silicon valley

In 1955, Shockley returned to his nativeSanta Clara Valley and enlisted Beckman's support to start his own company.

Santa Clara is located in the southern SanFrancisco Bay Area, along with San Jose [4] and Sunnyvale. Superiorgeographical location and beautiful environment; The climate is fresh andpleasant; The transportation is convenient. Since then, this narrow valley hasbeen known all over the world.

After starting his own company, Shockleyrelied on his prestige to quickly recruit a group of knowledgeable and skilledpeople. At this time, we seem to see a semiconductor business giant is about torise to the top of the world, but there are always accidents.

Silicon Valley's eight defectors

Shockley, though a brilliant genius, wasnot a good manager. In the direction of the company, he was almost in controlof himself, dictatorial, and he did not know his own shortcomings, and he didnot accept the reasonable suggestions of his colleagues, which eventually ledto the company without products for a long time. In terms of the relationshipbetween colleagues, he neglected the most important two points -- respect andtrust. Shockley managed to keep the technology patents firmly in his own handsby various means. This self-serving management style will eventually bring downthe company.

On Sept. 18, 1957, the Eight young men, ledby Noyce, angrily resigned, and Shockley was furious, calling them the"Traitorous Eight.

The Silicon Valley eight will be: N. Noyce,R.Moore, J.Blank, E.K. Liner, J.Hoerni, J.Laster, S.Roberts and V.Grinich.

The legendary fairy

Soon, the eight men raised venture capitalfrom the visionary Sherman Fairchild, who founded Fairchild, after whom thecompany was named.

The company is controlled by ShermanFairchild and managed by Noyes. Under the new management mode, FairchildSemiconductor developed rapidly and became profitable in less than half a year.

At the same time, Fairchild's two patentsput it at the top of the world's semiconductor industry. One is the planarprocess, a process for making semiconductor circuits invented by Jean Hoerni.

Another invention patented was theintegrated circuit. As the name implies, integrated circuit is to use a certainprocess, the transistor, resistance, capacitance and inductance and othercomponents needed in a circuit and wiring interconnection together, made in asmall piece or a few small pieces of semiconductor chip or dielectric substrate.

In 1958-1959, Robert Noyce from Fairchildinvented the silicon integrated circuit. In fact, in the early days, Jack Kilbyfrom Texas Instruments invented germanium integrated circuits. Both men sharethe credit for inventing integrated circuits, since they independently andunknowingly invented them in the same year.

Now, we think of it as natural to integratemultiple circuits to reduce the area, and that simple idea has changed ourworld. Many great inventions come from a very simple idea. Maybe someone wouldhave thought of it without these two, but history will only remember the first.

Fairchild was in the wind, and thesemiconductor industry was like a huge gold mine for Fairchild to dig.Fairchild's equity was largely in the hands of investor Sherman Fairchild, andas profits from Fairchild Semiconductor continued to be diverted to the EastCoast to support Fairchild Photographic Equipment, Fairchild's employees beganto lose their seats and a new wave of new businesses began to leave.

4. Flowers are everywhere

In 1968, N. Noyce and R.Moore, the man we knowas Moore's Law, left Fairchild to start the company we know as Intel.

AMD was founded in 1969 by Jerry Sanders,then director of sales at Fairchild, with seven Fairchild employees.

Many of our most familiar companies, suchas National Semiconductor (now acquired by TI) and Altera (now acquired byIntel), were founded by Fairchild.

As Apple's Steve Jobs famously put it:"Fairchild is like a ripe dandelion. When you blow on it, the seeds ofentrepreneurship flutter everywhere."

Subsequently, Intel, TI, Samsung and othergiants began to shine on the world stage!

In the world of processors (cpus), Intel'shistory represents the history of processors. In 1971, Intel introduced itsfirst processor, the 4004. It was a 4-bit processor that contained only 2,300transistors. Today, the processor was a mere twit, but it was a significantbreakthrough from zero to one. In 1978, Intel introduced a 16-bit processor:the I8086. In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088, the first CPU to be successfullyused in personal computers. From 1982 to 1989, the 80286,80386,80486microprocessors were successively introduced. In 1993, the Pentium processorwas born, and in 2005, Core came into the public's vision. Core I3, I5, and I7became the mainstream of PC.

Intel and AMD make chips for PCS andservers. There is even more competition for processors in today's hotsmartphones. Apple, Samsung and Qualcomm have been occupying the high-endcomputer market. In recent years, the domestic semiconductor industry hasemerged strongly. Hesis and Spreadtrum are the representatives of China.

5. Look to the future

Throughout the past half century, the rapiddevelopment of semiconductors has provided the basis for our technologicalexplosion. With 10nm chips already commercially available and 7nm and 5nmprocesses approaching their limits, Moore's Law seems to be coming to an end.We are not sure where the next turning point will be for semiconductors, butthe development of quantum technology seems to point us in the right direction.

As quantum communication, quantumentanglement and other new words began to appear in our field of vision,quantum chip also was born, and the traditional chip processing using 0 and 1,quantum chip with multiple qubits, rather than only two logic state of 0 s and1 s, which makes chips into exponential growth of computing power, so as tobreakthrough the limitation of Moore's law.

Looking back on the glorious history ofsemiconductor development, it also represents the history of human civilizationto a certain extent. If the development of machinery has liberated human labor,the development of semiconductors has liberated human computing power. And thedevelopment momentum of semiconductor will never stop here, will shine with thedevelopment of science and technology, for each of us, the future ofsemiconductor, the future of the world, we are worth looking forward to.

P.S. Moore's Law: The number of transistorson an integrated circuit chip doubles every 18 months