How the Semiconductor Changed the World

There is no doubt that the biggest change to the tech industry has been the invention and continued development of the semiconductor.

11:42 13 August 2021

There is no doubt that the biggest change to the tech industry has been the invention and continued development of the semiconductor. This humble component upon which the World wide web is built allows for the connectivity that has become the norm in modern society. Most, if not all of the gadgets that we have in society today will have at their core a semiconductor. This article aims to provide a concise understanding of the semiconductor and a brief outline of how this humble, often ignored piece of hardware has changed the world. 

 

What is the humble semiconductor?

The semiconductor is the basic building block of modern computation and has come a long way since the early days and large sizes. The first silicon semiconductor was designed and invented in the US in 1947, and by making it small enough to fit on a microchip opened the floodgates for smaller and more powerful computation. So, it is no wonder that the initial inventors of the semiconductor, Brattain, Bardeen, and Shockley, won a Nobel prize for physics.

 

Following the development of the semiconductor, it was the miniaturization and integration into circuits and circuit boards that then took over to make transistors or semiconductors that could be fitted in the millions onto a computer chip. These discrete semiconductors were the impetus that computing and technological advancement required to take mobile computing to the level at which it finds itself today.

 

Instead of suitcase-sized mobile phones or the reliance on the landline telephone, we have access to small handheld devices with as much computing power or more than the early pcs. Space exploration is monitored and run using touch screens, and the world of tech has shrunk accordingly.

 

How semiconductor use has improved and changed the world

The vacuum tubes used before semiconductors and transistors required a great deal more power to run and generated too much heat for them to be reliable or a sustainable switch solution. A simple example is a mobile phone, which in 1983 weighed just under 1kg and cost on average USD 4000 now weighs only 120grams and has an average cost of only $300.00. many would argue that the changes in semiconductor sizes led to this advancement in mobile technology. For example, 30 mins of talk time have become hours, and the change has been ongoing and constant. The same can be said for the other area of semiconductor usage, and from transistors and microchips that have applications throughout the world of modern electronics, handheld games, bar code readers to solar cells and LED displays, the semiconductor is at the heart of them all.

 

What semiconductors and transistors are used for?

Extensively used in electronic circuits, the semiconductor partly transmits electricity and acts as a switch, and with a myriad of these now positioned on each silicon chip, you have access to microprocessors. Anything that is computerized or uses radio waves thus needs semiconductors or these switches to process and transmit information. They are touted as the brains of modern electronics, and the better they work, the more seamless the access, storage, and use of data can be.

 

It is a market that has taken the world by storm, and based on the demand for microprocessor chips and computing power, it is now a US $500 Billion industry. With over a 100billion integrated circuits in use daily around the world, the humble semiconductor is at the forefront of the surge in technology usage and development.

 

The future

The recent shortage in the global market for semiconductors was theorized due to heightened tech and gadget industry demand. However, some have seen a more sinister underlying cause. There is a growing monopoly related to the development of semiconductors and, as such, an unhealthy reliance on these producers. Based on the global need for the parts, they currently have the globe at their mercy until such time as there is a move away from this tech or a widening of the current market. This has elicited a renewed urgency to find smarter, more widely made solutions and drive local semiconductor developers and small businesses. It presents as a local business opportunity, and rather than continuously outsourcing from the Taiwanese semiconductor giants, we should be looking at a local, homemade alternative.

 

Concluding Remarks

There is an argument that modern engineers have reached the end of semiconductor development and that there is no way to fit more of these onto a microchip. The laws of physics and space are at the center of this argument. However, on the contrary, and just as any other human technological advancement is evidence of, it is at the end of technological capability and in a scenario where no future developments have been postulated, where the next advancement is either transistors or microchips, themselves will happen.