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The development of electronics has a direct impact in computers; the first computing devices were mechanical with limitations in size and processing speed. With the invention of the transistor in 1947 and the integrated circuit in 1958 (Lee 2007), a new approach for computing devices was possible using the binary system for instructions and data in digital computers. Boolean logic is implemented in electronic circuits by using transistors on-off states as true-false (one-zero) logic.
Since the invention of the transistor (electronic switch in digital electronics), research has been focused on the integration of these building blocks into small chips; integration has reduced the size and cost of computers and other electronic devices (Branscomb 1982). The actual trend in microelectronics is known as Moore´s law: the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every 18 months. Some...
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References
Branscomb, L. M. (1982). Electronics and computers: an overview. Science, 215(4534), 755–760.
Lee, T. H. (2007). The pre-history of the integrated circuit: a random walk. IEEE Solid State Circuits Newsletter, 12(2), 16–22.
Santo, B. (2009). Microchips that shook the world. IEEE Spectrum, 34–43.
Strukov, D. B., Snider, G. S., Stewart, D. R., & Williams, R. S. (2008). The missing memristor found. Nature, 453, 80–83.
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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Delgado, A. (2013). Electronic Circuits in Computers. In: Runehov, A.L.C., Oviedo, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1480
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1480
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