1.

Electronics has undergone rapid development due to greater knowledge of the

properties of materials and increasingly complex manufacturing techniques
1.1 identify that early computers each employed hundreds of thousands of single transistors
In 1946, John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert developed the
ENIAC I (Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator).
The ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes (transistors),
along with 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 1,500 relays,
6,000 manual switches and 5 million soldered joints. It
covered 1800 square feet (167 square meters) of floor
space, weighed 30 tons, consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical
power, and, when turned on, caused the city of Philadelphia
to experience brownouts.
- http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa060298.htm

1.2 explain that the invention of the integrated circuit using a silicon chip was related to the need to
develop lightweight computers and compact guidance systems
By 1960 vacuum tubes were rapidly being supplanted by transistors, because the latter had
become less expensive, did not burn out in service, and were much smaller and more reliable.
Computers employed hundreds of thousands of transistors each. This fact, together with the
need for compact, lightweight electronic missile guidance systems to be built into the actual
missile rather than totally be controlled by ground base, led to the invention of the integrated
circuit (IC) independently by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments Incorporated in 1958 and by Jean
Hoerni and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation in 1959. Kilby is usually
credited with having developed the concept of integrating device and circuit elements onto a
single silicon chip, while Noyce is given credit for having conceived the method for integrating
the separate elements.
- http://www.geocities.com/tech_ed_2000/industrial/energy-power/electronics/electronics.htm

1.3 explain the impact of the development of the silicon chip on the development of electronics
In the late 1960s, integrated circuits were used in many different devices. Typical applications
ranged from calculators and video games to various control equipment and missile guidance
systems. Each device was custom-designed to perform each of the various functions required.
Each function was hard-wired onto the respective chip, with the transistors connected together
to produce the desired behaviour.
In 1971, Ted Hoff, a young engineer at Intel, decided that instead of a specifically designed
logic chip, a better approach would be to design a general-purpose chip that could be
programmed with the specific function required. Rather than producing different chips for a
calculator and a missile guidance system, the same chip could be used simply by changing its
set of instructions. This was the microprocessor, which was a rudimentary computer in its own
right.
In 1977 a new consumer product emerged, in the shape of the Apple II. This long gestation
was a result of the resistance of the mainframe computer industry to adopt the new concept.
Their business strategies were based on providing complex, expensive devices built out of
discrete components. This had the additional benefit of long-term maintenance and servicing
contracts with the clients. The prospect of building cheap microprocessor-based computers
threatened to jeopardise this concept. Microprocessor-based computers would be too cheap,
and their lower part counts would increase reliability, hurting the servicing contracts that were
an important part of every computer company's income in those days.
-

http://www.bioss.sari.ac.uk/~dirk/essays/ParShiftsInfTech/eca_micro.html

Silicon-chips have had a monumental impact on our society. You find silicon-chips at the heart
of microprocessor chips as well as transistors. Anything that's computerized or uses radio
waves depends on silicon-chips.

17-7-04: Phillip Cooper

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/diode.htm

1.4 outline the similarities and differences between an integrated circuit and a transistor
Jack Kilby (working at Texas Instruments 1958- and credited for the
invention of the Integrated Circuit) wrote in a 1976 article titled
"Invention of the IC": "Further thought led me to the conclusion that
semiconductors were all that were really required that resistors and
capacitors [passive devices], in particular, could be made from the same
material as the active devices [transistors]. I also realized that, since all
of the components could be made of a single material, they could also be
made in situ interconnected to form a complete circuit. A transistor is
similar to an integrated circuit in that the transistors are formed from the
ICs silicon base.
-

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/integratedcircuit.htm

ICs are a collection of transistors all interconnected on the one base

(IC). A transistor is any of various electronic devices used as amplifiers
or oscillators in communications, control, and computer systems
-

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia 2003. 1993-2002 Microsoft

Corporation. All rights reserved.

1.P1 identify data sources, gather, process and analyse information to outline the rapid development
of electronics and, using examples, relate this to the impact of electronics on society
The integrated circuit allowed building several electronic components together on a single piece
of silicon, which eliminated much of the labour from electronic assembly. With continual
improvements and advances in this technology, more and more transistors could be placed on
each silicon chip. This process is summed up by Moore's Law, which states that the numbers of
transistors that can be built on the same size piece of silicon will double every eighteen
months. This implies that computers are getting increasingly powerful and microprocessors
become always
cheaper. The graph
below plots the number
of transistors
manufactured onto
successive generations
of Intel
microprocessors, which
shows how consistent
Moore's Law has been
over the last decades.
In recent years, the functional capability of ICs has steadily increased, and the cost of the
functions they perform has steadily decreased. This has produced revolutionary changes in
electronic equipmentvastly increased functional capability and reliability combined with great
reductions in size, physical complexity, and power consumption. Computer technology, in
particular, has benefited greatly. The logic and arithmetic functions of a small computer can
now be performed on a single very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) chip called a microprocessor,
and the complete logic, arithmetic, and memory functions of a small computer can be packaged
on a single printed circuit board, or even on a single chip. Such a device is called a
microcomputer.
In consumer electronics, ICs have made possible the development of many new products,
including personal calculators and computers, digital watches, and video games. They have also
been used to improve or lower the cost of many existing products, such as appliances,
televisions, radios, and high-fidelity equipment. They are used extensively in industry,
medicine, traffic control (both air and ground), environmental monitoring, and communications.
-

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia 2003. 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights

reserved.

1.P2 gather secondary information to identify the desirable optical properties of silica, including:
Refractive index
Ability to form fibres
Optical non-linearity

17-7-04: Phillip Cooper

Silica (Silicon dioxide), SiO2, is a naturally occurring substance comprising 12% of the earth's
crust. The varied properties of silica allow it to be applied to a diverse array of fields.
This non-crystalline, colourless, silica glass combines a very low thermal expansion coefficient
with excellent optical qualities and exceptional transmittance over a wide spectral range,
especially in the ultraviolet. It is resistant to scratching and thermal shock. One of the
important applications is High Energy Laser Optics. No other optical material matches the purity
of silica and therefore its ability to withstand and transmit high energy laser pulses with limited
absorption or damage to the material. Silica is used for windows, lenses, and prisms in the
transmission range 0.16mm to 3mm. Its refractive index varies from 1.55 to 1.40 through the
transmission range.
-

http://www.sciner.com/Opticsland/FS.htm

Glass holey fibres are typically made

by stacking bunches of high purity
silica tubes together, and then
drawing down this stack into a fibre. Since the processing temperature of glass is a relatively
high 1800 C, this process is difficult to control. It has also limited the type of structures that
can be made, since tubes of glass can only be stacked in a few ways.
-

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/physics/research/Plastic-Optical-FibreConsortium/microstructured-opt-fibre-apps.doc

Simultaneous measurements of the intensity and phase of a probe

wave reflected from an interface between silica and elemental
alpha-gallium reveal its very strong optical nonlinearity, affecting
both these parameters of the reflected wave. The data corroborate
with a non-thermal mechanism of optical response which assumes
appearance of a homogeneous highly metallic layer, only a few
nanometre thick, between the silica and bulk alpha-gallium.

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0101056
http://fibers.org/articles/news/6/1/10/1/coilednanowire

http://www.thorlabs.com/SelectGuide2.cfm?Guide=67&Section=6&Ref=13

17-7-04: Phillip Cooper