an early IC from the lab

 In the early 1960's, the semiconductor industry discovered a way to put a number of transistors on one silicon wafer. The transistors are connected together with small metal traces. When the transistors are connected together, they become a circuit which preforms a function, such as a gate, flip-flop, register or adder. This new technology created basic semiconductor building blocks. These building blocks are refered to as Intergrated Circuits.

Small and Medium scale intergration (SSI and MSI) produced major families of digital logic. These gave digital circuit desiginers a wide range of building blocks to work with. The technology of ICs pushed in two directions. A push to devlop low-cost manufacturing techniques and a push to devlop circuits that are more complex. The use of ICs let minicomputers more powerful for thier size. By the 1970's the minicomputer became as powerful as a room sized computer.

The technology of Intergrated Circuits Progressed well into the 1970's, where large-scale intergration (LSI) became common. LSI was making it possible to produce more digital circuits in a single IC. The devlopment of the electronic calculator showed dramatic improvments in large scale intergration.

After the calculator was reduced to a single circuit, Computer designers next reduced the architecture of a complete computer to a single IC. When this step of reduction was acheived the resulting circuit was called the microprocessor.