A semiconductor is a material whose conductivity at room temperature is between that of a conductor and an insulator. Common semiconductor materials are silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide and so on. Silicon is one of the most influential semiconductor material applications.

Compared with conductors and insulators, the discovery of semiconductor materials was the latest. It was not until the 1930s that the existence of semiconductors was really recognized by the academic community, when the purification technology of materials was improved.

Semiconductor is mainly composed of four components: integrated circuit, photoelectric device, discrete device and sensor. As integrated circuit accounts for more than 80% of the device, semiconductor and integrated circuit are usually equivalent.

Integrated circuits are mainly divided into four categories according to product types: microprocessor, memory, logic devices, simulator parts. Usually we call them chips.

Integrated circuits can integrate analog and digital circuits on a single chip to make devices such as analog to digital converter and digital to analog converter. This circuit offers smaller size and lower cost.

Usually when we talk about chips we see these black boxes about the size of a fingernail, these are packaged