How Semiconductors Changed the World

Semiconductors, Human Evolution & the History of the Personal Computer

For semiconductor jobs, IC Resources is the first choice for professionals looking for the next step in their semiconductor career.  IC Resources offer permanent and contract semiconductor jobs such as Semiconductor Equipment Engineers, Digital CAD Flow Developers, Analog/Mixed Signal IC Design Engineers, Field Application Engineers (FAE), Project Management and many more throughout the UK, Europe, USA and Asia Pacific.

There are many examples of inventions and discoveries that academics, theologians and philosophers point to and say that they are the great moments in the history of mankind: discovering fire, inventing the wheel, language, farming, organised religion, the printing press etc. Everybody has a different point of view on this subject. Yet a contender for the title of most important invention in recent times has to be the microprocessor. Without semiconductors there would be no microprocessors, without microprocessors there would be no personal computers, laptops or tablets, no embedded systems providing digital control of appliances and industrial processes, and no mobile phones.

Before the microprocessors incorporated entire CPUs, computer processors had to be built using small and medium scale integrated circuits often containing hundreds of transistors all soldered onto printed circuit boards, several boards would then be interconnected on a chassis. The speed at which these early computers could operate was limited by the distance that signals had to travel between the integrated circuits on the boards. The computers themselves were huge, filling rooms; they were expensive to produce and therefore to buy; they used a lot of electricity to operate and thus produced a tremendous amount of heat. All of these factors made them prohibitive to individual ownership; they were owned and operated by large corporations, governments and universities.

These giants were not personal computers, there would be several terminals hooked into the mainframe or the end user's requests were filtered through operating staff. Computers became more personal with the introduction of the minicomputer such as the LINC and PDP-8 in the 1960s, but these were still roughly the size of a fridge and would cost tens of thousands of pounds to buy.

Then in the early 1970s everything changed with the first commercially available microprocessor, the Intel 4004, and with the introduction of the Kenback signalling the birth of the personal computer. Suddenly the computer could run quicker, was smaller, there were less connections meaning less could go wrong making it more efficient, they were cheaper to produce which pushed the cost of purchasing the PC down. From then on, everybody could afford to own and run a computer and that is why nearly every home in the UK has one today.

This has had a revolutionary effect on the way people live their daily lives, conduct business, learn and, most importantly, enjoy global communication and social interaction; the world has become a community. It is a leap in human evolution that cannot be underestimated in its importance and, when people in the future look back at the history of mankind, this era of technological renaissance could possibly be viewed as our most pivotal moment.

For semiconductor jobs and semiconductor recruitment services visit IC Resources.