Number of Transistors on

an Integrated Circuit
The Physics Factbook
Edited by Glenn Elert -- Written by his students
An educational, Fair Use website
Bibliographic Entry

Millman, Jacob Ph.D &

Halkias, Christos C.
Ph.D. Integrated
Electronics analog
digital circuits and
systems. Ed. Frederick
Emmons Terman. New
York: McGraw-Hill
Inc,1972: 197.

"Integrated Circuit".
Microsoft Encarta

Result
Standardized
(w/surrounding text)
Result

"We demonstrate in
this chapter that a
reasonable area
under which a
component (say, a
transistor) is
fabricated is 50 mils2.
Hence each chip
(each integrated
circuit) contains 50
separate components,
and there are
50 x 400=20,000
components/in. on
each wafer."
"In large-scale
integration (LSI), as
many as 5000 circuit

3000/cm2
(1972)

3000/cm2
(2003)

Reference Library 2004.

1993-2003.

Kang, Sung-Mo &

Leblebici, Yusuf. CMOS
Integrated Circuits
Analysis and Design.
3rd. ed. McGraw-Hill
Professional 2002: 2.

"Integrated Circuits".The
illustrated Science and
Invention Encyclopedia.
Volume 10. New York:
H.S. Stuttman. 1974,
1976, 1977. 1273.

elements, such as
resistors and
transistors, are
combined in a square
of silicon measuring
about1.3 cm (.5 in) on
a side."

"State-of-the-art ULSI
chips, such as DEC
Alpha or Intel
107 ~ 108/cm2
Pentium, contain 10 to
(2002)
100 million
transistors."
"Typically the chip
may be .005 inch
(1.27 mm) square
by .01 inch (.025 mm)
thick, though modern
LSI (large scale
integrated) devices
may measure up to
0.25 inch (6.4 mm)
square and may
contain the equivalent
of many thousands of
individual transistors."

"As of 2006, chip

areas range from a
Integrated Circuit.
few square mm to
Wikipedia. 28 May 2007. around 350 mm2, with
up to 1 million
transistors per mm2."

2000/cm2
(1977)

108/cm2
(2007)

An integrated circuit (IC) is a minuscule electronic circuit

that consists of active and passive components as well as

interconnections. These components include transistors,
diodes, capacitors and resistors. ICs are made out of
crystalline silicon wafers. Several hundred identical
integrated circuits are made on a thin wafer that is a
couple centimeters wide, and this wafer is then sliced into
many chips. In large-scale integration (LSI), as many as
5000 semiconductors such as resistors and transistors are
combined in a square of silicon 1.3 centimeters on each
side. The interconnections of an integrated circuit are
made up of semiconductor films and are insulated from
the other parts of the circuit by layers of dielectric material.
Examples of integrated circuits include DEC Alpha and the
Intel Pentium chips.
The IC is based mainly on the transistor. The transistor, a
semiconductor device, was developed as an alternative to
the old vacuum tube. Since the transistor could be made

much smaller, it was much more convenient to use. As a

result, the transistor became the main amplifying device in
almost all electronic equipment.
ICs are significant not only because they are tiny but also
because they are reliable and relatively cheap. In fact,

because of these characteristics, integrated circuits have

made possible the development of the calculator, the

personal computer, the digital watch, and the video game
console. They have also been used to improve older
technology that was developed before it such as the
television and the radio.
In the early 1960s, Moore's law was proposed which
predicated that the number of transistors in an IC doubles
every two years. Thus, it was to no surprise that after
1970, the number of transistors in an IC started to
increase exponentially. In fact, in 2006, chips were created
that contained up to 100 million transistors per square
centimeter.
Gennadiy Rozentsvayg -- 2007
Bibliographic Entry
Cutnell & Johnson.
Physics 3rd Edition.
Wiley, 1995: 763.

Result
Standardized
(w/surrounding text)
Result

"Today it is possible
to combine arrays of
thousands of
transistors, diodes,
resistors, and
capacitors on a tiny
chip of silicon that
usually measures less

~1000

"Computer." Microsoft
Encarta Online
Encyclopedia 2001.
http://encarta.msn.com,
Microsoft Corporation,
1997-2001.
Sivitz, Laura. "When the
Chips are Down."
Science News, Vol 158,
No. 2. 11/25/00: 350.

than a centimeter on a
side."
"Modern
microprocessors can
contain more than 20
million transistors."

>20,000,000

"Today's computer
circuits are packed
with transistors- the
newest Intel Pentium
chip has 28 million of
them."

28,000,000

Encyclopedia
"This integrated circuit
Britannica,Vol. 9.
contains
Encyclopedia Britannica, approximately 3,000
1977: 661.
transistors."

"Intel Announces Tiniest

Transistor Yet." The
Oregonian, 12/11/00.

Markoff, John.
"Researchers Make an
Ultra-Tiny Chip." New
York Times, 06/10/01:
A42.

"The end result, the

semiconductor giant
said, will be a
thumbnail-size
computer chip with
400 million transistors
operating at speeds
up to 10 gigahertz."

"That is more than 23

times the number of
transistors used in
Intel's current state-ofthe-art Pentium 4

3,000

400,000,000

42,000,000

microprocessor, which
has 42 million
transistors and is
capable of executing
1.7 billion instructions
a second."

Integrated circuits are found in every technological device

that we use today, from computers and calculators to
watches and cellular phones. An integrated circuit (IC) is a
tiny silicon chip, less than a centimeter in width. Among
other things, the IC contains arrays of transistors that help
process data. The more transistors there are in a circuit,

the faster the data is processed. Modern technology has

allowed data to be processed rapidly by increasing the
number of transistors and decreasing the size of the IC.
The number of transistors has thus been changing over
the years. In the 1970s, an IC might have approximately
3,000 transistors. Now, the number of transistors has
reached 42 million. A theory developed in 1965, called
Moore's Law, which predicted that the number of
transistors in an IC would double every 18 months. So far,
the predictions have proven fairly accurate, and according
to scientists, they should remain accurate until the year

2014. What shall happen afterwards can only be guessed

at.

Serafina Shishkova -- 2001

Glenn Elert
Author, Illustrator, Webmaster
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