From the start at the origin of semiconductor silicon

(Huaqiang electronic world news network) from human beings, has been over millions of years. The progress of the society can be represented by the artifacts of the time, from the stone age to the bronze, to the iron age. Today, the output value of electronic components with silicon as raw material, is more than the output value of steel as raw material, the history of mankind has entered a new era, that is, the era of silicon. Silicon is representative of the semiconductor components, including memory elements, microprocessor, logic components, optoelectronic components and detectors and so on, such as television, telephone, computer, refrigerator, automobile, the semiconductor components for our service every hour and moment. Silicon is the most common element in the earth, many of the major components of stone are silica, however, integrated circuits made through the hundreds of process, the value of up to tens of thousands of dollars; the process of stone into a silicon chip is one of the achievements of modern science is also able to perform wonders and miracles!

In Japan, some people think of the semiconductor as the rice of the industrial society. In the national defense, only a solid foundation for the electronic industry, there is a strong national defense capabilities, the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the United States has a new generation of electronic weapons to play the most incisive. Since 1970s, the United States and Japan occurred several times of trade friction, but in the end many programs in the United States have to compromise, but in order to semiconductor, both sides refused to compromise easily, finally signed the agreement between the two governments very careful, demonstrating the importance of the matter, this is because the success or failure of the development of the semiconductor industry, the relationship between the state of the life, can not be careless. In Taiwan, the semiconductor industry is the main pillar of the Hsinchu Science Park, the semiconductor company is also the most profitable companies, Taiwan, if we want to become the future of science and technology, the semiconductor industry, semiconductor industry is the way we have to go.

Origin of Semiconductors

In twentieth Century, modern science, especially the development of quantum mechanics have conductivity and good thermal conductivity characteristics of metal materials, and ceramic materials are not properties out before the people to understand the surrounding objects still belongs to the more macroscopic understanding between was between these two people, is the semiconductor material.

The British scientist Faraday (Michael Faraday, 1791~1867), has many contributions in electromagnetics, but is not known, which is a semiconductor material he found in 1833: silver sulfide, because its resistance decreases as the temperature rises, the only thing this strange, and not stirred too much spark; however, today we already know that, with the temperature increase, the lattice vibration is more severe, the resistance increase, but for the semiconductor, increase the concentration of free carrier temperature increased, but helps to conduct electricity, this is also a very important semiconductor physical properties.

In 1874, Braun (Ferdinand, 1850~1918) of Germany, noted that the conductivity of the sulfide and the direction of the voltage, which is the role of the semiconductor rectifier. But until 1906, the United States motor inventor (G. W. Pickard, 1877~1956 pick-up), invented the first solid-state electronic components: radio wave detector (cat s whisker), which uses metal and silicon rectifying function or PBS contact generated, to detect radio waves. In the rectifier theory, Germany Schottky (Walter Schottky 1886~1976) in 1939, in the "German Journal of physics" published an important paper on rectifying theory, has done a lot of inference, he believes that the metal and semiconductor have barrier (potential barrier) exists, its main contribution lies in the accurate calculation the energy barrier of the shape and width of. As for the now accepted theory for rectification, is 1942, by Sommerfie (Arnold Sommerfeld, 1868~1951 Bate (Hans Bethe) students, 1906~) developed, he proposed that the thermionic emission theory (thermionic emission), which has high energy electron can be crossed to reach the other side of the barrier. The theory is consistent with the experimental results.

In the field of semiconductor, the energy band theory is as important as the rectification theory. Bloch (Felix Bloch, 1905~1983) has made an important contribution in this regard, the theorem is that the electronic wave function with the periodic terms, the first open band theory precedent. On the other hand, the German Peierls (Rudolf Peierls, 1907~) in 1929, pointed out that a band almost completely filled, its electrical properties can be used to explain some of the positive charge, this is the origin of the concept of the hole; he later proposed the perturbation theory, explains the energy gap (Energy gap) are.

Invention of semiconductor

As early as 1930 and 1940s, using the idea of making semiconductor solid-state amplifier continuously; the first experimental results of the amplifier is in 1938 by the boi (Robert Pohl, 1884~1976) and Hershey (Rudolf Hilsch) do, is the use of potassium bromide crystals and tungsten wire into the gate, despite its operating frequency only one Hertz, no actual use, but to prove the practicability of the three terminal solid like components of a vacuum tube.

After the two World War, the United States Baer Laboratory (Bell Lab), decided to conduct a semiconductor project goal is to make solid state amplifier, which in July 1945 established a research department of solid state physics, the manager is Shockley (William Shockley 1910~1989) and Morgan (Stanley Morgan). Due to the use of field effect (field effect) to change the conductance