What goes into a computer and other electronic components. A history of how it occurred.

1. Developments in Material Science
OBJECTIVES:
What are the 3 essential properties of every material?
New materials often lead to new technologies that change society.
Describe how silicon-based semiconductors revolutionized
computing.
What are microchips? How are they related to integrated circuits?
One of the pressing questions about the increasing ability of
computers to quickly process large amounts of information is
whether a computer can be built that is considered "alive" or
"conscious." What is artificial intelligence?
What are 2 essential differences between human brains and the
central processing unit of a computer?

2. Developments in Material
3 Essential properties of every material
1). Elements
a. Natural Elements
b. Compound Elements
c. All have a combination of protons, electrons and
neutrons, except hydrogen. It has no neutron.
2). Atom Arrangements
a. Is unique for every material.
b. The arrangements of the atoms is a distinct repeated
pattern.
3). Atom Bonds
a. Ionic bonding
b. Covalent bonding
c. Polar bonding
d. Hydrogen bonding
(Editorial Board, 2014)

3. Developments in Material
Types of Materials
a) Solids – Characterized by closely bonded atoms
that signify the strength of solid materials.
b) Liquids – are materials without any distinct
shape, and they will adopt the shape of the container
in which they are present.
c) Gases – characterized by loosely formed chemical
bonds separated by relatively large distances.
(Editorial Board, 2014)

4. Properties of Material
Chemical, Thermal and Mechanical Properties
Chemical - Includes crystalline structure, reactivity, toxicity, corrosion
resistance, and various thermal properties.
Thermal – To operate at its optimum performance level, the material
must be able to meet the thermal requirements. Must be able to handle
thermal and thermal shock resistance.
Mechanical – During manufacture of materials, materials checked for
tinsel strength, ductility (stretchiness), and plasticity (to bend without
breaking).

5. Properties of Material
Electrical Material Properties
Electrical - Materials now made with the conduction in
mine die to high energy demands. They include:
a) Conductors – Type of material to let
electricity pass through it.
b) Insulators – material that provides resistance
so electricity can’t pass through it.
c) Semi-Conductors – is material that is semi-
conductive and may have other material
added to allow more current.
d) Superconductors – this has zero resistance where
current may flow freely.

6. Developments in Material
History to Semi-Conductors
- Before the semiconductor, there was the vacuum tube. This was the
voltage flow regulator or switch to any electrical components.
- Could be found in TV’s, radios, early computers, stereo consoles and more.
- Was develop by John Ambrose Fleming in 1904.
- First semi-conductors replaced vacuum tubes after John Bardeen and two
other chemists from Bell Laboratories introduced the transistor in 1947.
- Is a component used to control the amount of current or voltage or used for
amplification/modulation or switching of an electronic signal.
- Is the primary building block for all the current microchips.
- Is primarily made of silicone sand and has impurities added to set flow
controls.
(Hope, 2011)

7. Developments in Material
History to Semi-Conductors
- In 1953 Jack Kilby created the first integrated circuit at Texas Instruments to prove that
resistors and capacitors could exist on the same piece of semiconductor material.
- In 1967 Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. built the first standard metal oxide
semiconductor product for data processing applications, an eight-bit arithmetic unit and
accumulator.
- In 1971 The first advertisement for a microprocessor, the Intel 4004, appeared in
Electronic News. Developed for Busicom, a Japanese calculator maker, the 4004 had
2250 transistors and could perform up to 90,000 operations per second in four-bit chunks
- In 1972 Intel´s 8008 microprocessor made its debut.
- In 1986 Compaq beat IBM to the market when it announced the Deskpro 386, the first
computer on the market to use Intel´s new 80386 chip, a 32-bit microprocessor with
275,000 transistors on each chip. At 4 million operations per second and 4 kilobytes of
memory, the 80386 gave PCs as much speed and power as older mainframes and
minicomputers.
- In 1989 Intel introduce the 486 chip with 64-bit floating point technology.
(Computer History Museum, 2014)

8. Developments in Material
How Semi-Conductors revolutionized Computing
First Generation Computers (1940 – 1956) – Utilized vacuum tubes. Incapable
of multitasking and wasn’t economical. Used mostly by Department of
Defense. (UNIVAC and ENIAC)
Second Generation (1956 – 1963) - Utilized transistors and made computing
faster and smaller but still relied on punch cards and print outs.
Third Generation (1964 – 1971) – Introduced integrated circuitry.
Semiconductors made of reduced transistors on silicon chips were introduced.
Fourth Generation (1972 – present)– Microprocessors introduced and made
machines smaller, faster, efficient and reliable. Became more of household
item due to size, inexpensiveness, speed and efficiency.
(Spencer, 2013)

9. Developments in Material
Microchips
The microchip is a very small semiconductor used to relay bits of
information. The term microchip can be used interchangeably with
the integrated circuit Under the microchip definition it is prescribed
as:
- In the definitions at (www.dictionary.com) it refers to Microchip
& Integrated Circuit.
- Microchip:
- The basic component of modern miniaturized electronics.
- The “chip” is a series of electrical circuits built into a tiny wafer of
silicon or another semiconductor.
- It consists of transistors, resistors and diodes and is also known as
an integrated circuit.
(DAINTITH, 2014)

10. Developments in Material
Integrated Circuit
Integrated circuit : is made of transistors, resistors, and capacitors
constructed on a single semiconductor wafer or chip, in which the
components are interconnected to perform a given function.
Transistor – A transistor has three terminal electrodes and is used for
the flow amplification of power and gate switching.
Resistors – do exactly what they are named for. They cause power
flow and information to be limited or constrained. This causes the heat.
Capacitors – Also known as a condenser is used for holding an
electrical charge. The main capacitor classifications are non-polarized
(used for AC circuits) and polarized (used for DC circuits).
(DAINTITH, 2014)

11. Developments in Material
Artificial Intelligence
What is A.I.? - the theory and development of computer systems ability to
perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as:
Visual perception – The ability to orientate to ones surroundings using vision
and perceive the area through site recognition. A machine can’t remember
where it’s been.
Speech recognition – Only 50% accuracy for speech recognition. Is affected
too much by slang verbiage in all languages.
Decision-making - Can make appropriate calculations based on input, but
does not have intellectual aptitude to accurately predict outcomes based on
prior experiences and uncertainty. Is not self learning. Is only capable of
running Boolean Theory of true versus false.
Translation between languages - a process that requires in-depth knowledge
of the grammar, semantics, syntax, idioms, etc. Here in lies the crook. The
language must be decrypted and recoded to the target language.
(Burton, 1998)

12. Developments in Material
Human Brain Versus CPU’s
1. The brain uses a different type of memory from CPU’s The brain uses
content-addressable memory and the CPU uses byte-addressable memory.
2. Computers are digital and brains are analogue. Brains have
multidimensional neural pathways and layers to choose from where
CPU’s pull from a linear sequential source and limited layer sources.
3. Unlike computers, processing and memory are performed by the same
components in the brain. As neurons process information they are also
modifying their synapses – which are themselves the substrate of
memory.
4. The brain is much, much bigger than any [current] computer. There are
100 billion neurons in the brain. Some neurons are known to have more
than 1,000 dendrites, and up to about 1,000 different branching off their
axons which equates to (225 million billion) possible connections for
computations. Exponentially more than a CPU.
(Chatham, 2007)

13. Developments in Material
Conclusion
We have materials present to make many materials. Those materials
go so far to make things like diodes, transistors, resistors and semi-
conductors. Those are all put together to make integrated circuits
and micro chips. Since those innovations have occurred, the move
forward has been exponential to have machines that can act and
think like the human brain. Super computers are now as powerful
as what use to take the whole bottom of a library to perform
calculations and they are getting even smaller with micro-
architecture microchips. With such calculations has come the belief
that artificial intelligence is possible, if not probable. Dreamers
want computers to walk and talk like humans and have intellectual
self learning thought process. However, a look at the brain tells us
that we have a long way to go.
Authored by: Mark L. Simon

14. References
Burton, R. (1998). Natural and Artificial Minds. Albany, NY, USA: State
University of New York. Retrieved Nov 29, 2014
Chatham, C. (2007, Mar 07). Developing Intelligence. Retrieved Nov 29, 2014,
from Science Blogs:
http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2007/03/27/why-the-
brain-is-not-like-a-co/
Computer History Museum. (2014). Timeline. Retrieved Nov 29, 2014, from
Computer History Museum:
http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline.html
DAINTITH, J. (2014). "Transistor, Capacitor, Diode. Retrieved Nov 29, 2014,
from A Dictionary of Computing:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/transistor.aspx#3
Editorial Board. (2014, Nov 29). Materials and Their Properties. Introduction To
Science(1st), p.p.74-89. 231 N. Martingale Road, Illinois, USA: Words of
Wisdom, LLC. Retrieved Nov 29, 2014, from
http://wow.coursesmart.com/9781934920817/firstsection
Hope, C. (2011, Oct 05). Vacuum tube. Retrieved Nov 29, 2015, from Computer
Hope: http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/v/vacuumtu.htm
Spencer, W. (2013). History of the Computer. Retrieved Nov 29, 2014, from
Tech-Faq: http://www.tech-faq.com/history-of-the-computer.html