Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics

Vol. 19, October & December 1990. pp. 306-308

) _.J .'

Semiconductors
~"-_._,-,.,-
and evolution of electronics
I
B.RNag ""'\
Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics, University of Calcutta, Calcutta 700 009 )

The role of semiconductors in the evolution of electronics to its current form is discussed. The
two routes along which electronics has evolved by using silicon and by using compound semicon-
ductors are described. The potential of the heterostructures and quantum well devices in shaping the
electronics of future is also indicated.

1 Introduction um but also inside matter, and perhaps mostly in-

Prof. S K Mitra had said in his Presidential side matter. This understanding was the basis of
Address at the Forty Second Indian Science Con- the prophecy, quoted in the beginning of this arti-
gress held at Baroda in 1955: "The fututre stage, cle ..

if one may venture to make a prophecy, will be
the era of the uses and applications of the ele-
ment germanium, the wonder child of electronics.
We are on the threshold of this era. One foresees
with a certainty the advent of radio equipments of
unbelievably small sizes replacing many of the
cumbrous and heavier ones in use today. And at
the same time, as it happened before with a fund-
amentally new invention, there will open up many
new fields of application of radio electronics". We
realize after 35 years in 1990 that no prophecy
could be more true.
Electronics may be said to have originated in
1883 when Edison noticed the Edison effect, the
flow of current between the filament of an electric
lamp and a metal electrode placed inside it. This
effect was utilized in vacuum tubes to control the
motion of electrons and realize thereby various
circuit functions, e.g. amplification, oscillation,
modulation, rectification, detection and switching,
a comprehensive name for all these is electronics.
Vacuum tubes being the basic element, Langmuir.
had defined electronics as 'a branch of science
which deals with devices and techniques employ-
ing electrons detached from ordinary matter'.
This definition was correct till 1948, the year in
which the invention of transistor was announced.
Prof. Mitra had assessed the role of this invention
so correctly that he modified Langmuir's defini-
tion to 'electronics is the science and the art of
controlling the movement of electrons'. He felt
sure that the movement of electrons will be con-
trolled for electronics of future not only in vacu-
Electronics has evolved since the invention of
transistor, mostly rhrough semiconductor devices.
The developments in electronics have become
completely dependent on the science and technol-
ogy of semiconductors. The objective of this arti-
cle is to briefly outline the different routes in
which this evolution has taken place.
2 Silicon-based electronics
The first transistor was made with polycrystals
of germanium. Within a few years, as soon as
techniques for the purification and crystal growth
of silicon were developed, silicon replaced germa-
nium. Silicon was considered a better material as
the silicon devkes were less temperature sensitive
because of its larger band gap. For the next two
decades electronics evolved in the direction of
miniaturization with silicon as the main working
material. Devices were made with grown junction,
by alloying, by diffusion on bulk material and
then on epitaxial material with planar technology
and by ion implantation. Each new technique
caused a reduction in the scale size of the device.
The progress was so rapid that the size was re-
duced from about 103 .um in 1948 to 1 .um in
1968.
In the meantime, ·around the beginning of sixt-
ies, techniques were developed for the integration
of transistors, diodes, resistors and capacitors on
a silicon chip, which made possible realization of
complete circuits in large numbers as one device.
These integrated circuits use either the bipolar
transistors having the basic forms of planar tran-

306 I

"
 NAG: SEMICONDUCTORS & EVOLUTION
sistors or MOS transistors. The details of the
transistor layout and the technology used for cir-
cuit realization are too complex for a discussion
in this article. However, it is of interest to note
the developments in technology and in size reduc-
tion with the passage of years. Evolution of the
technology of making. MOS devices has been such
that the cell area has been reduced from 3000
Jim2 in 1970 to 4 Jim2 in 1989 and the number of
devices has been increased from 4 k to 16 M per
chip. The latest chip reported from Japan is a 64
M-bit memory with 0.3 11m technology.
Chips or the ICs of various scales, namely, SSI,
LSI, vLSI and ULSI, are one form in which elec-
tronics has evolved by using the semiconductors.
These circuits have made the present electronics
very different from vacuum tube electronics. The
jungle of vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors,
wires and tags have been replaced by neatly ar-
ranged identical looking chips connected by neat-
ly laid thin metallic connections on printed circuit
boards. The work horse of this electronics is sili-
con, which is the basic material used in major
part of electronics industry today. Silicon has,
however, some limitations, most important of
which are (i) mobility of charge carriers is low,
and (2) optoelectronic interactions are not effi-
cient. Electronics for high frequencies, micro-
waves and millimetre (mm) waves and for optics
has therefore evolved in a different route.
3 Compound semiconductors in electronics
Compound semiconductors have been the ma-
terials for electronics for microwaves and optic
waves. It was suggested in 1926 that materials
with the crystal structures of germanium and sili-
con (the two elemental semiconductors) could be
made by me.lting a stoichiometric mixture of a
group III B element with a group V B element
and resolidifying the melt. This suggestion ulti-
mately led to the realization of a new class of
semiconductors which do not occur in nature but
are grown artificially in laboratory. These com-
pounds are: InSb, lnAs, InP, GaSb, GaAs, GaP,
AlSb,AlAs and AlP. These compounds are all
semiconductors but have energy band structures
very different from that of Si or Ge. The energy
band gap varies from 0.24 to 1.55 eV, the effec-
tive mass ratio from 0.013 to 0.15 and the elec-
tron mobility from 0.1 to 10 m2Ns. Some of
these compounds are again direct band gap mate-
rials. It is also possible to make mixtures of the
binary compound~ to realize ternary or quater-
nary compounds, which have properties interme-
diate between the component binaries, so that
OF ELECTRONICS
materials may be made to· realize any band gap or
effective mass or mobility in between the limits
mentioned above. These properties of the com-
pound semiconductors have caused evolution of
electronics along a different route.
Because of direct band gap, optoelectronic de-
vices could be realized; these appeared first as
light emitting devices (LEDs) which could be
made to emit any colour by engineering the band
gap with mixtures of binaries. Next came the in-
vention of diode laser using GaAs for the first
time. The operating wavelength of the lasers can
also be tailored to suit the requirement. These de-
vices have caused amalgamation of light with elec-
tronics; which is at present visible as optical com-
munication and other systems. The work is also
progressing for the realization of photonics where
electrons will control light signals directly without
the intermediary of currents.
Properties of III-V compounds have also been
useful for changing the face of. microwave and
mm wave electronics. The invention of transistors
has replaced vacuum tubes in communication and
digital electronics by semiconductor devices. But
for a long time, vacuum tubes continued to be
used in microwave systems. New devices were in-
vented using the properties of III-V 'compounds
which have made possible miniaturization and in-
tegration of microwave systems. Microwaves and
mm waves are now generated, amplified and de-
tected also by semi&onductor devices. Integrated
systems in the form of microwave monolithic inte-
grated circuits (MMICs) have become possible us-
ing gallium arsenide as the substrate material on
which active as well as passive devices may be
realized to make a complete transmitter or a re-
ceiver.
4 Heterostructure and quantum well electronics
The Ill-V compounds may also be used to real-
ize heterostructures in which crystals of two or
more materials may be grown alternately. The di-
mension of the individual layer may also be made
as small as a few monolayers. Electrons are con-
fined in these structures in lengths comparable to
electron wavelength. Consequently, the compo-
nent of momentum in the direction of confine-
ment gets quantized and the electron system be-
comes two-dimensional or 2 DEG. Properties of
such confined electrons are very different from
those in bulk materials. Current evolution of elec-
tronics is occurring using these quantum devices.
Already, quantum well lasers (QWLs), high elec-
tron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and resonant
tunnelling bipolar transistors (RTBTs) have been
307
 INDIAN J RADIO & SPACE PHYS, OCTOBER
developed, which are likely to cause spectacular
changes in optoelectronic and digital systems. De-
vices have already been realizt:d with switching
speeds of 20 ps or less, power-delay products of
the order of femto joules, characteristic tempera-
tures of 300 K or more, operating frequencies in
the THz range and suitability for multistate logic.
Experiments are also being conducted to realize
1-and even O-dimensional electron gas systems so
that electrons may move freely in one direction
only or are fully confined. What will be the im-
pact of these new devices on the evolution of
electronics is not yet clear. It may, however, be
expected that systems will be further miniaturized,
will consume still less energy, will be faster and
more versatile. Photonics and electronics will be
completely integrated and the definition of elec-
308
" II' "I "IP I" I'
& DECEMBER 1990
tronics will have to include control of photons
along with the control of the motion of electrons.
5 Conclusion
Prof. Mitra had prophesied that electronics
would be ultimately based on germanium. He had
named germanium as it was the only usable semi-
conductor in his time. Electronics engineers did
not believe that vaccum tubes would be complete-
ly replaced ultimately by semiconductor devices.
Semiconductors were believed to have only limit-
ed fields of application in low-power and low-fre-
quency devices. But, we see today that Prof. Mitra
was right in every way. Electronics today is fully
based on semiconductors, so much so, that no
country can hope to foster growth of electronics
without a good base in semiconductors.
I'