Computer Science: When the Chips are Down

An Electronics Revolution.

During the 1960s the integrated circuit (IC) created a revolution in electronics. Previously circuit boards that ran electronic devices had to be big enough to hold components such as vacuum tubes, capacitors, and resistors. Then vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors, resulting in saving some space. But once wonder materials called semiconductors could be fabricated successfully, hundreds or thousands of complete individual components could be incorporated on a single one-inch-square silicon wafer. Computers the size of a room could now be emulated by machines the size of a television, and radios the size of a loaf of bread could be reduced to the size of a candy bar.

Mass-market ICs.

The first user of these chemically etched integrated circuits was the military. It did not take long to figure out that ICs could be used in consumer products as well. Television sets still had vacuum...

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