What is a semiconductor?

Semiconductors are materials that guide electrical properties between conductors and insulators, with equal probability of loss and gain of electrons in the outermost layer of the atomic nucleus, and are easily made into PN junctions. Such as "silicon (Si)", "germanium (Ge)" and other materials.

"Semiconductor" is sometimes used to refer specifically to electronic components with PN junctions. Including: diodes, triodes, MOS transistors (field effect transistors), thyristor, amplifiers, AND or NOT gates, and other complex components mainly composed of semiconductor components.

Integrated circuit (IC) refers to the integration of most circuits that achieve a certain function or multiple functions into a single package, appearing as a single part in the electronic product circuit. An integrated circuit can be composed of semiconductors or components other than semiconductors. For example, the network transformer on the main board is composed of several sets of magnetic core coils, but it also belongs to integrated circuits.

Chip is a subset of integrated circuits, mainly composed of semiconductor components. Thousands or even billions of tiny semiconductor components are designed and manufactured on one or more substrates, and then packaged into a chip like integrated circuit, which is what we now call a chip. The chip is not entirely composed of semiconductors, but also contains a small amount of resistors, capacitors, and other components.

"When the scale of integrated circuits was not very large, the term IC was already used. At that time, the number of pins in integrated circuits was not large, and there were only two rows of pins. Therefore, people have become accustomed to calling those small-scale integrated circuits IC's.".

Later, the scale of integrated circuits became very large, and the surface area became increasingly large. Two rows of pins could no longer meet the requirements. Instead, they were replaced with four sided pins, and even rows of pins were introduced at the bottom of the integrated circuit. "The thickness of integrated circuits has not increased much, forming a thin chip shape. Manufacturers call this type of integrated circuit Chip, which should mean" chip ". Later, we translated it into a chip.".