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• Maram Ahmed

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“A Brief History of Electronics “ Electronics is the science and technology of the motion of charges in a gas, vacuum or semiconductor. A historical division was made in the beginning of the twentieth century that separated between the already existing field of electrical engineering and the emerging field of electronics engineering where electrical engineering dealt only with devices that depended solely on the motion of electrons in metals such as motors, generators, light bulbs, and wire communication systems (telephone and telegraph). At the end of the twentieth century the historical division between electrical and electronic engineering no longer serves its original function. The distinction between information processing and energy processing serves to separate electronics from the rest of electrical engineering. However, the nature of the discipline of electronics comprising the four fields: communication, computation, control and components. In this brief, the principal focus will be on the development and the applications of electronic devices and the growth of the industries resulting from the exploitation of these devices in practical circuits and systems. This history is divided into two main parts: the vacuum- tube era and the transistor era that started at 1948.Both of them will be mentioned in this brief followed by the concluding section contains a brief speculation on the future direction of electronics. Background In 1837, Samuel Morse demonstrated the telegraph system. The significance of electric telegraphy was the introduction of an effective method in encoding the information into electrical signals. The dots and dashes of the Morse code represented the first use of binary signals. Nearly 40 years later Bell invented the telephone and introduced a method for coding information (speech) as a continuous electrical signal and then decoding these signal at a receiver. Then, at 1877 Edison invented the phonograph record which is considered to be the first electrical read only memory (ROM). The introduction of radio communication is based on the major contribution of Clerk Maxwell who made a prediction of existence of electromagnetic waves which could be propagated in space. Then, 23 years later Hertz was

able to produce such waves through laboratory experiments. In 1986 Marconi was able to transmit these waves and detect them. :The Discovery of Vacuum Tubes Fleming invented the diode. It consisted of a heated wire, the filament and was separated by a short distance from a metallic plate. A positive plate-to-cathode voltage produced a current,but a negative reduced the current to zero. Two years later, Pickard used a silicon as a detector. This was the first .semiconductor diode The invention of the triode was the seminal achievement in the earliest days of electronics. The triode consisted of a third electrode inserted between the plate and the cathode. The triode provided the properties of a controlled switch. All electronic circuits exploit device characteristics. Initial Circuits Application: The first applications of vacuum tubes were to telephone and radio communication and IRE. It is a tribute to the imagination and foresight of the early engineers. AIEE focused on the conventional interests of engineer. Societies merged into a single organization, AIEE, a move which reflected a half century of development in the profession. Notable among the new circuits were cascaded amplifiers, regenerative amplifiers, oscillators, heterodyning, and multi vibrations. The oscillator was the first instance by which electronics signals. The multi vibrators were the basics of flip-flops and clock generators. :Electronics Industries The amplifier had almost immediate commercial application in long distance telephony. The advances in tube technology made by telephone companies. Station KDKA was created by Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Electronic industries fit one or more of the groups: components, communication, control and computation. :Components

Components companies came into existence to produce the various types of electron devise as well as passive circuit elements. Engineers and scientists made significant advances in developing new and better devices. With new and improved devices, new circuits were invented.

:Communication Radio signals transmitted at frequencies above 500 kHz. These signals must be encoded into and shifted to the higher-transmitting frequencies by a process referred to as modulation. The types of modulation are AM and FM. Black-and-white TV began in 1930. The color TV became the dominant TV system Telephone systems were transformed into one of the major forms of electronic communication. Radar utilized radio communication as aids in both air and sea navigation. Many of the newer communications systems utilized discrete signals rather than continuous signals. New communications systems were operating at high frequencies and based on new microwave devices. Computers: Origins of computers are in the vacuum tube era . In 1633 Schickard described a mechanical computer for add, sub, multiply and divide using a wheel with spokes unit. In 1642 Pascal had similar ideas. In 1833 Babbage built a mechanical calculator and called the analytic engine or Babbage's computer. This computer contained all elements of modern digital computer. It used punched cards invented by Jacquard for input and output, contained memory, arithmetic unit and was a stored –program machine. But the technology simply was not available to convert his ideas into practical machine . The first working electromechanical calculator was built by IBM engineers who directed by professor Aiken of Harvard university in 1930 . it was called Mark I. It was 17 (m) long and 3 (m) high. It used for over 15 years. In 1946 the first electronic calculator was completed at university of Pennsylvania and was called ENIAC '' electronic numerical integrator and computer'' it was not a general purpose calculator . it used by armed forces. In1946 IBM introduced

the first commercial electronic computer, the type 603 . 1948 can be considered as the beginning of computer industry .At this time, a number of institutions was engaged in computer researches funded by several government agencies, these engineers developed hardware and software concepts. The IBM 650 considered the workhorse of the industry in 1954.Analog computers were developed during the later part of vacuum tube, used to solve large systems of differential equations . the differential analyzer was the first electromechanical analog computer. controls : electronic control industry mean the use of electronic devices in the control machines. High-voltage high-power tubes were the devices used. These devices were used in circuits which provided high-voltage , high-power , rectifiers, inventers and high-voltage transmitting circuit .Applications included motor-speed control , voltage regulation , induction and dielectric heating. Analyses and theory : The significant analytical and theoretical progress was made since industrial growth ,and the range of achievements can be indicated as follows briefly : Circuit analyses and synthesis techniques were developed ,one particular application was (PCM) technique, sampled data systems introduced were applied in control applications . Transducers ,devices by which light ,sound, temperature and other variables are converted to and from electrical signals were introduced to make advantages afforded by electronics. The Transistor ERA: This era originated in earlier work performed between 1920 and 1945. The major impetus for development of solid-state devices was not forth coming until 1945. The director of research and later president of Bell Laboratories had the foresight to recognize that reliable expanded telephone communication required electronic. He formed a solid research group ,they hope that the research will obtain a new knowledge that can be used in the development of completely new and improved component and apparatus elements of communication system .

Discovery of the Bipolar Junction Transistor : An experiment was performed in December 1947 two closely spaced goldwire probes were pressed into the surface of a germanium crystal. It was observed that the output voltage at the "collector" probe with respect to the "emitter" probe. The performance of the first transistor was very poor. They had low gain and band width and were noisy, and their characteristics varied widely from device to device. Shockley, the group leader, proposed the junction transistor and developed the theory of its operation. The new devices depended on charge carriers of both polarities. The two carriers were electrons and other "strange particles ".These strange particles were called "holes". Shockley's theory predicted that large current densities could be achieved for small applied potential. Bell Labs (1950) grew single crystals of germanium. From this development, the first grown- junction transistors were made and were followed year later alloy-junction transistors. American telephone and telegraph (AT&T) made a monumental decision not to keep these discoveries secret. The tube companies, such as RCA, Raytheon, and Western electric, were the first to fabricate transistor. Texas Instruments announced the production of silicon transistor in 1954. Shockley was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965 for their invention and contribution to the understanding of semiconductors. This was the first Nobel award given for an engineering device in nearly 50 years. Invention of the Integrated Circuit: Shortly after joining Texas Instruments in 1958, Kilby built both an oscillator and a multivibrator from germanium, making circuit interconnections from thermally bonded gold wire. Kilby announced his solid circuit at a convention in 1959. The real keys to IC manufacture were the planer and batch processing. The planer process used transistors in which the base and emitter regions were diffused into the collector. Batch processing permitted many IC "chips", to be made from a single silicon wafer. By1961, Texas Instruments was producing ICs commercially, followed soon afterward by other companies. The following approximate dates give some indication of the increasing component count per chip: 1951-discrete transistors 1960small-scale integration (SSI), fewer than 10 components 1966-mediumscale integration (MSI), 100 to 1000Components. The electronic industries divide into chip Manufacturers and chip users The IC manufacturers are the major segment of the component industries, whereas chip users are most often the companies producing communication, control, and computer equipment

. The Field Effect Transistor Much of the work of the bipolar transistor studies of the effect of electric .field ,Shockley proposed the junction field effect transistor (JFET) in 1951. In 1958 .the first JFET was prodused in France The techniques in JFETs led to the metal oxide semiconductor field effect .(transistor (MOSFET The structure consists of a metallic electrode (the gate) on the SiO2 between .(two electrodes (source and drain .In (1960) Bell Laboratories reported the first device .The computer industry have made MOS devices Digital Integrated Circuits New IC concepts resulted in new computer architectures.3 speed, power consumption, and component density are important considerations in digital .ICs The use of MOSFETs was attractive because very high component densities .are obtained The complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), a circuit configuration .employing both (PMOS) and (NMOS) devices More than half of the Mos ICs produced in 1970 went into manufacture of .calculators Several ICs manufacturers proposed calculator architectures into its circuit .functions .(Microprocessor first developed at Intel (1969 .(Four bit microprocessor were introduced (1971 Another development arising from MOS technology is the charge coupled device (CCD), invented at Bell Labs. (1970), consists of an MOS device that along .chain of closely gates is formed between drain and source .It have been used for memories and registers in 1977 Analog Circuit The first analog ICs came in 1964 by Fairchild semiconductor, developed the first .''opertional amplifer. Op Amp has become the ''workhorse Other circuits and subsystem have been subsequently developed and include .analog multiplier, (D/A) and (A/D) converter, and active filter Fabrication Techniques

These advances include epitaxial growth (1960), electron beam mask production .(and ion implantation (1971 ,(1969) Communication and controls industries : These industries are developed now almost all equipment, except that involving high power, is transistorized. Both discrete transistors and ICs are utilized.Discrete transistors are used primarily in audio output stages, automobile ignition systems; power switches for tape drive, power supplies, and etc. communications satellites became feasible and economically viable because of microelectronics. Since 1980 however, digital transmission has surpassed analog transmission. The telephone systems now employ digital ICs for switching and memory. Active filters for both voice and detection of touch-tone frequency pair are realized with analog ICs. Traditional circuits have been adapted to new technologies and uses by many circuits' innovations; others are new like switched-capacitor filters and digital filters. A whole new area of electronics, called digital signal processing, has evolved because ICs have made the "marriage" of communications and computation possible. Similarly, the introduction of microprocessors, microcomputers, and other digital ICs has led to "smart" instruments and continuously increasing variety of digital control systems. With microelectronics, computers have become integral components of control systems.

The Computer Industry: The most dramatic outgrowth of the microelectronics industry has been the virtual creation of an entirely new industry the modern computer industry The IBM 7090/7094, (1959) was the first general purpose second –generation computer that is, transistorized machine. Hybrid ICs (many discrete transistors on a single substrate) characterized the third generation computer (IBM 360 series in 1964) .Semiconductor memories were subsequently used in third generations' machines (IBM 370 series in 1970). In 1965 the Digital Equipment Corporation introduced its PDP8 minicomputer the first machine to sell for under $20,000 in the 1980 s, the fourth generation of machines is being developed and introduced .These computers employ VLSI chips for both processing and memory .Today, electronic

computer are available in a variety of sizes ranging from the simplest of microprocessors to supercomputers capable of executing hundreds of millions of instructions per second. To achieve higher speeds, increased computational capability, and more flexible processing, many innovations were made. In addition, time-sharing and distributed computation have had an important effect on computer usage the impact of microelectronics was dramatically expressed in 1977;'Today's microcomputer at accost of perhaps $100 has mare computing capacity than the first large electronic computer, ENIAC . The Future: It was impossible to know the events around the world now we can do that by watch TV when we turn on the television pictures are sent, none of these is possible without the advances in electronics .The ability to transmit television pictures is result of the areas of electronics are merging and the intelligent electronic systems that result are at the core of the information age. We believe that the electronics industries will continue to be the four IC's components, communication , computation, and control and the distinction between device, circuit, and system will become increasingly blurred for the last decade silicon – based technology dominates electronics .However, the results of research on new materials , particularly gallium play a significant role there is even speculation that organic materials, such as DNA, many find use in electronics by the end of this decade .