Why was Apple forced to switch to USB-C?

Shreyas Sen

Apple recently announced that it plans to adopt the USB-C connector for all four new iPhone 15 models, helping USB-C become the connector of choice of the electronics industry, nine years after its debut. The move puts Apple in compliance with European Union law requiring a single connector type for consumer devices.

USB-C is a small, versatile connector for mobile and portable devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones. It transfers data at high speeds. transmits video signals and delivers power to charge devices batteries. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. The C refers to the third type, following types A and B.

The USB Implementers Forum, a consortium of over 1,000 companies that promote and support USB technology, developed the USB-C connector to replace the older USB connectors as well as other types of ports like HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA. The aim is to create a single, universal connector for a wide range of devices.

The key features and benefits of USB-C include a reversible connector that you can insert in either orientation. It also allows some cables to have the same connector on both ends for connecting between devices and connecting devices to chargers, unlike most earlier USB and Lightning cables.

USB-C's widespread adoption in the electronics industry is likely to lead to a universal standard that reduces the need for multiple types of cables and adapters. Also, its slim and compact shape allows manufacturers to make thinner and lighter devices. USB-C refers to the physical connector. Connectors use a variety of data transfer protocols - sets of rules for formatting and handling data - such as the USB and Thunderbolt protocols.

The latest USB protocol, version 4, provides a data transfer rate of up to 40 gigabits per second, depending on the rating of the cable. The latest Thunderbolt, also on version 4, supports up to 40 gigabits-per-second data transfer and 100 watts charging. The newly announced Thunderbolt 5 will support up to 80 and 120 gigabits-per-second transfer and 140 to 240 watts power transfer over a USB-C connector.

Since its introduction in 2014, USB-C has gained widespread popularity and has already become the connector of choice for most non-Apple devices. Apple converted the iPad Pro to USB-C in 2018 and now is doing the same for the best selling Apple device, the iPhone.

Thanks to the industrywide adoption of USB-C, consumers soon won't have to ask "Is this the right connector?" when they reach for a cable to charge or sync their portable devices. (This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.)

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What is the significance of radio in today's world?

Over 2 billion radio receivers and over 20,000 radio stations exist worldwide. There is no truth about the notion that radio will be replaced by TV or other modern communication technologies, as it continues to expand Being the most economical electronic medium to broadcast and receive in, it breaks down barriers of illiteracy and isolation, making it the preferred electronic medium of the underprivileged. In radio broadcasting, community radio is a significant third tier that is different from commercial and public service radio.

What is a Community Radio?

 

Community Radio Stations (CRSs) are low-power radio stations designed for local communities to own and run. Local perspectives on topics related to health, nutrition, education, agriculture, and other topics are provided in a forum by Community Radio. People may immediately relate to the Community Radio broadcast because it is in their native language. A source of regional folk music and cultural legacy, the radio is especially important in a country like India where each state has its own language and unique cultural flavour. Community radio stations have grown significantly in popularity and number in the last 20 years. The social and economic advantages that arise from providing regular people with access to relevant information are now becoming more widely recognized.

The history of community radio

It was in Latin America, around 50 years ago, that the groundbreaking experiences that have given rise to community radio. The initial experiences-known the Miners' Radios in Bolivia in 1947 and Radio as Sutatenza in Colombia that same year were sparked by poverty and social injustice. Community radio emerged as a significant phenomenon in Europe, serving as an opponent or substitute for mainstream broadcast media, despite the breakthrough work being done in Latin America. Following the fall of the colonial government in South Africa, community radio stations across the continent were established and eventually evolved into a social movement.

The Indian government published the first set of community radio guidelines and the necessary equipment in early 2003, but limited the eligibility to educational institutions alone. The goal of establishing community radio stations that would involve local communities in the content production process has just recently expanded to include non-profit organizations, agricultural research institutes, and educational institutions.

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What kind of app is Destiny Lights?

Destiny Lights is a kind of social network in which users can explore ideas and exchange messages. Express your thoughts, ideas and anything you want to vent in the form of 'lanterns'. You can also anonymously post lanterns. These lanterns fly around the world, and fellow users can catch them and read your message. You can read other lanterns and like, save or leave a comment on them. The author will be able to receive and reply to comments on his/her lantern. The more likes it gets, the faster your lantern flies around and reaches different locations. If a lantern reaches 370 cities, it is included in the Top 50 lanterns in the app. If lantern in a foreign language, it has a built-in translator, too. The app also lets you find a you see how many people have read your update across the world. Free for Android.

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IS TIKTOK THE MOST POPULAR APP 2022?

TikTok took the top spot for most downloaded app in the first three months of 2022, beating Instagram and Facebook. The short-form video sharing app TikTok was the most downloaded app worldwide in first three months of 2022, according to a report from Sensor Tower.

TikTok is one of the world’s fastest-growing social media platforms. Sensor Tower recently released its “Q1 2022: Store Intelligence Data Digest” report in which TikTok was the top app by worldwide downloads in Q1 2022. The app previously had surpassed 3.5 billion all-time downloads in the first quarter of 2021, becoming just the fifth app (and the only one not owned by Meta) to achieve this milestone.

Since the start of 2022, TikTok has been downloaded more than 175 million times. TikTok has surpassed 10 million downloads for the past nine quarters now, while YouTube has surpassed the same threshold for eight consecutive quarters. No app has had more downloads than TikTok since the beginning of 2018 when WhatsApp had 250 million worldwide downloads, per the report.

There’s a lot to be said about the success of TikTok and where it’s going. The social media app is mainly dominant for its relevant trends, unique algorithm and a diverse set of communities for every niche subject matter. Just recently, its updates include interactive add-ons for in-feed ads as well as a test on a private dislike button for comments. It also recently launched its own AR development platform, Effect House.

When examining the global downloads on iPhones and iPads, the order of the top five apps has remained unchanged over the past three quarters. TikTok exceeded 70 million App Store downloads for only the third time in Q1 2022, driven by 11% quarter-over-quarter growth in Asia. Despite being banned in India, which has one of the largest markets for app installs in the world, the app was ranked third place overall in Asia. It was No. 1 in the App Store, yet in seventh place for Google Play in Asia.

Looking at U.S. overall downloads, TikTok has been the top app each quarter since Q1 2021. The last app to beat TikTok was Zoom in Q4 2020. Also, since Q1 2021, TikTok and YouTube have been the top two apps on the U.S. App Store each quarter. TikTok was also the number one app on Google Play for the third quarter in a row, with installs up 19% year-over-year.

The same five apps have taken the top spots in Europe for each of the past four quarters. TikTok and WhatsApp were in the top two positions, while Instagram went down a ranking from last quarter to the number four spot. Even though WhatsApp has been the top App Store app in Europe for each of the past seven quarters, TikTok has also held on to the top spot on Google Play over the same period.

These estimates made by Sensor Tower include worldwide downloads for iPhone, iPad and Google Play for January 1 through March 31, 2022. This excludes preinstalled apps. The company only reports unique installs and Android estimates do not include third-party stores. The figures represent aggregate installs of all app versions.

Credit : Tech crunch \

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HOW TO HIDE LIKE COUNTS ON INSTAGRAM

What one person wants from their Instagram experience is different from the next, and people’s needs are changing. To hide likes on your post, tap on the three-dot menu button next to an image and select 'hide like count. To pre-emptively hide likes on your posts when you create them, go to Advanced Settings and turn on 'Hide like and view counts on this post. To avoid seeing the total number of likes and views on posts from other accounts on your feed, go to Settings > Privacy> Posts and turn on Hide like and view counts'.

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What is a software that blocks threats to your computer?

Computers could get affected by malware unless we take some safety measures. There are many security software available in the market that can detect and eliminate dangerous threats.

Antivirus software

Antivirus software is a program or a set of programs, when installed will detect viruses and other malicious software in computer and removes them. It searches every website you visit to see whether there are any viruses, and if found, fixes them. It also scans your data and files on a computer’s hard disk regularly. There are many different types of antivirus software. Many of them can be downloaded for free.

Did you know?

Every day new viruses, worms, and other computer threats are being created and spread in the Internet. Hence, you need to update your antivirus software. Most of the antivirus software updates are automatic via the Internet.

Firewall

Firewall is a combination of hardware and software that acts as a barrier between a reliable network and unreliable networks such as the Internet. It controls all computers in a network by limiting their exposure to the Internet so that crackers cannot reach the computers in the network.

Scanning the hard disk

You need to keep your storage devices such as the hard disk clean without any viruses. For doing this, the hard disk should be regularly scanned to detect and fix harmful threats through antivirus software.

Tips for computer safety

Here are a few tips that help you keep your computer safe from threats.

1. Don't leave your computer unattended or logged on, especially when others may have access to it.

2. Have protective software or antivirus software in your computer.

3. Whenever you want to install any new software or download any file or programs, run antivirus software to detect and fix viruses.

4. Be cautious of attachments and links in emails that come from people you don't know. It is advisable not to open them.

5. Avoid unreliable (often free) downloads from freeware or shareware sites.

6. Don't allow your web browser to automatically run any program.

7. Back up your files and programs regularly. 8. Update your antivirus software on a regular basis.

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Which are few resolutions you can make when it comes to technology?

Take time to detox

Too much time is spent in front of the screens these days due to online classes and assignments. So take a break and spend time meditating or taking a walk in the neighbourhood. Also resolve to take regular breaks when you need to sit in front of the computer for the whole day.

Reduce use of paper

Do your bit for the environment and save printer paper by printing only what is absolutely necessary.

Appreciate what you have

Technology keeps developing rapidly. But you don't need to have it all. Be content and make full use of the technology at your disposal.

Keep in touch

While you can't meet friends and relatives physically, resolve to keep in touch with them through video calls and emails. Instant connectivity is one of the many boons of technology.

Stay fit and healthy

Don't compromise on your health. You can use technology to maintain your physical and mental health. There are many gadgets as well as apps available online that teach you exercises and meditation.

Organise

Like you clean up and organise your home, organise your desktop and email inbox as well. Delete unnecessary files and organise the existing ones into folders and tabs.

Be polite

While social media has too much negativity going on, when you choose to interact with friends or acquaintances online, resolve to be polite, kinder and nicer.

Be safe

Set privacy settings on all your social media accounts to maximum and install antivirus software. Protect yourself and your system from cybercrime.

Help others

Some people take time to adapt to changes in technology. Be patient and help them understand the gadget or software they are struggling to navigate.

Stand for what's right

You are lucky to have access to the Internet and other technology. Use it to voice your opinion for the right things and further important causes.

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New supercomputer to rank among the world’s fastest



A new supercomputer in Wyoming, U.S.A., will rank among the world’s 25 fastest and help study phenomena including climate change, severe weather, wildfires and solar flares. The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Cray EX supercomputer will theoretically be able to perform almost 20 quadrillion calculations per second – 3.5 times faster than the existing machine named Cheyenne. That power will enable some of the most sophisticated simulations yet of large-scale natural and human-influenced events.



It “will support basic research in ways that will lead to more detailed and useful predictions of the world around us, thereby helping to make our society more resilient to increasingly costly disasters and contributing to improved human health and well-being,” centre Director Everette Joseph said in a news release.



More than 4,000 people from hundreds of universities and other institutions worldwide have used the supercomputing centre since it opened in 2012.



The facility’s current supercomputer, named Cheyenne, is over three times faster than its predecessor, which was named Yellowstone.



A contest among Wyoming schoolchildren will decide the new supercomputer’s name.



 



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HOW DOES THE INTERNET WORK?


The internet is a global network of millions of computers that can communicate with one another. Information can he sent and received across the network in the form of text, pictures, video and sound. Home computers often connect to the Internet using a normal phone line and a modem — a device that connects the computer to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Businesses and other large organizations may have their own network, known as a Local Area Network (LAN), which connects to an ISP with a high-speed link.



Everyone’s talking about the internet and whether, or how, it should be regulated. But not enough people know how the internet actually works—or what exactly the internet is.



You probably have your own “local area network” at home, and it’s made up of all the devices connected to your router, which connects to the internet. The word “internet” refers to a worldwide system of “interconnected computer networks”.



That’s all the internet really is—a large number of computer networks all over the world, connected together. Of course, there’s a lot of physical hardware—from the cables under your city streets to the massive cables on the ocean floors to satellites in orbit around the planet—that makes this communication possible. There’s also a lot of software at work in the background, allowing you to type in a website address like “google.com” and have your computer to send information to the physical location where that website is located in the fastest way possible.



Even when you’re just connecting to a single website, there’s a lot more going on under the hood. Your computer can’t directly send a piece of information, or “packet” of data, to the computer hosting the website. Instead, it passes a packet to your home router with information about where it’s going and where the web server should reply. Your router then sends it to the routers at your internet service provider (Comcast, Time Warner, or whoever else you use), where it’s sent to another router at another internet service provider, and so on, until it reaches its destination. Any packets sent back to your system from the remote server make the reverse journey.



To use an imperfect analogy, it’s a bit like sending a letter in the mail. Your local postal employee can’t just grab the letter and take it directly across the country or continent to its destination address. Instead, the letter goes to your local post office, where it’s sent to another post office, and then another one, and so on, until it gets to its destination. It takes longer for a letter to get to the other side of the world than the other side of the country because it has to make more stops, and that’s generally true for the internet as well. It will take a bit longer for packets to go longer distances with more transfers, or “hops”, as they’re called.



Unlike with physical mail, sending data packets is still very fast, though, and it happens many times a second. Each packet is very small, and large numbers of packets are sent back and forth when computers communicate—even if one is just loading a website from another one. A packet’s travel time is measured in milliseconds.





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WHY DO COMPANIES ADVERTISE?


Companies use all forms of media to advertise their products and services. advertising began simply as a way of telling people about a product, but it is now much more sophisticated. It is used to present the image of a company in a certain way and also to target a particular audience that the company feels it can attract. In this way, the company associates itself with a certain lifestyle. Advertising is a huge business, with large companies investing huge sums of money in anything from sports sponsorship to putting their logo on the side of a milk carton.



Companies use advertisements as part of a marketing program to increase sales of their products and services. Advertising plays a different role at different stages of the marketing process -- helping to raise awareness of a product or service, generating leads for a sales force or selling directly. Companies with retail outlets use advertising to make consumers aware of product availability and increase sales through the outlets.



Awareness



Companies use advertising to make customers and prospects aware of the features and benefits of their products. If customers are not aware of your product, they will not consider it when they next make a purchasing decision for the type of product you offer. Advertising puts your product into the consumer’s set of choices.



Brand Preference



Advertising can build a preference for your product over competitors’ offerings. Your advertising messages must reflect the information that customers feel is important when choosing a product. It must also stress the quality of your product. By advertising regularly, you can reinforce the brand messages so that your product becomes first choice when the consumer next makes a purchase.



Direct Sales



Use direct response advertising to sell products directly to customers. The advertisement includes details of the product and its price together with a telephone number or website address where customers can order the product.



Retail Development



Advertising details of retailers or distributors that stock your products builds sales by driving traffic to the outlets. The advertisements can provide information on retail outlets or promote special offers available at those outlets. This type of advertising can also help you promote your products to distributors and retailers.



Lead Generation



If you market products and services through a sales force, you can use advertisements to generate leads for the team to follow up. Include a response mechanism in the advertisement such as a reply coupon, telephone number or email address so that customers can register their details in return for an incentive offer. Examples of incentives include free copies of special reports for business customers or gifts for consumers.



Reputation



When a prospect is selecting a supplier for a major purchase, company reputation is an important factor in the decision. Use advertising to build a positive perception of your company. Reputation or corporate advertising communicates messages about factors such as your company’s achievements, financial stability, market success and innovation record.




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WHAT IS MASS MEDIA?



Certain forms of media, particularly television and newspapers, are able to communicate to thousands or even millions of people at the same time. These mass media can have a very powerful influence on their audience, and often reflect the particular view-point of the media-owner.



Think about this for a second: whenever you want to hear your favorite song, watch your favorite show, or see the latest current events, where do you go? You more than likely turn on your television, radio, or computer. The source that the majority of the general public uses to get their news and information from is considered mass media.



Mass media means technology that is intended to reach a mass audience. It is the primary means of communication used to reach the vast majority of the general public. The most common platforms for mass media are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. The general public typically relies on the mass media to provide information regarding political issues, social issues, entertainment, and news in pop culture.



The mass media has evolved significantly over time. Have you ever wondered how the latest news and information was communicated in the past? Well, before there was the Internet, television, or the radio, there was the newspaper. The newspaper was the original platform for mass media. For a long period of time, the public relied on writers and journalists for the local newspapers to provide them with the latest news in current events.



Centuries later, in the 1890s, came the invention of the radio. The radio would soon supersede the newspaper as the most pertinent source for mass media. Families would gather around the radio and listen to their favorite radio station programs to hear the latest news regarding politics, social issues, and entertainment.



Later on down the line came the invention of the television. The television would soon replace the radio for the most effective platform to reach the general public. Today, the Internet is the most relevant form of mass media and has become a major tool for news outlets. Since the evolution of the Internet, the general public is now able to access those same news outlets in an instant with just a click of a mouse, instead of having to wait for scheduled programs.



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HOW IS INFORMATION SENT AROUND THE WORLD?


In the modem world, we can access information in ways that could only be dreamt about just 50 years ago. Information can travel around the world via television, radio, telephone and computer networks, all of them connected by satellite or cable links. Modern communication systems, or media, allow almost anyone to transmit and receive verbal, visual and written information wherever they are in the world.



Optical communications networks provide the underlying high-capacity, ubiquitous connectivity that underpins the global Internet Characterizes the growth of communication and computing between 1986 and 2007, based on a broad collection of data. Around the year 2000, Internet traffic took over from voice telephone as the single largest communication format for information. Now Internet traffic dominates completely. All of the long-distance communications on the Internet are over optical fiber.



Major advances in transmission techniques and technologies have allowed network providers to provide extremely cost-effective network upgrades that have kept pace with the extraordinary appetite for broadband Internet services. That growth, as exemplified in has driven network bandwidth demands by a factor of 100 over the last 10 years. That increase has been enabled by realizing the full potential of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) that has resulted in fibers carrying as many as 100 separate wavelengths. In addition, the capacity per wavelength in commercially deployed terrestrial networks has increased from a maximum of 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s) per wavelength when the first edition of Harnessing Light was published in 1998, to 100 Gb/s today. As a result, per fiber transmission capacities in terrestrial systems today as high as 5-10 terabits per second (Tb/s) are possible. Transoceanic capacities have lagged somewhat behind terrestrial values because the long amplifier-only distances and the desire to extend the amplifier spacing have made upgrading to per wavelength capacities above 10 Gb/s problematic. Nevertheless, transoceanic per fiber capacities of approximately 1 Tb/s are typical. For the future there are expectations that this growth will continue as more video content calls for bandwidth and that there is a need for another factor-of-100 growth in the coming 10 years as well.



Major advances have also been achieved in both cost-effectively managing the large capacity in today’s WDM optical networks and in leveraging the value proposition of optical amplifiers to provide multi-wavelength amplification over network mesh and ring architectures. Reconfigurable, wavelength-routed networks—in which wavelength-defined units of capacity can be added, dropped, or switched from one fiber route to another fiber route directly in the optical domain without the need for conversion to electronics—are now heavily deployed in long-haul terrestrial networks as well as metropolitan networks. Wavelength-routed networks provide cost-effective solutions because they allow data on wavelengths passing through a node at a multi-route network node to remain in the optical domain and benefit from the cost-effective multi-wavelength amplification enabled by optical amplifiers, rather than needing to be individually electronically regenerated. The large increase in capacity demand has ensured that a prerequisite for the economic viability of such networks—namely, that the capacity demand between any two node pairs on the network be at least as large as that which can be carried by a single wavelength—is met.



WDM optical networks require reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) to, under network electrical control, drop or add wavelength channels at a node and to switch wavelength channels from one fiber route to another. ROADMs are key enablers that have evolved significantly in their functionality, providing increasing levels of flexibility, and in their capacity, or number of fiber ports and wavelengths per fiber, over the last decade. Further progress in these network elements and their enabling technologies will be essential to addressing the growing demand for capacity.



Ultimately, networks are no better than the access capacity that they provide to the end user, whether that customer is a business or a residence. Increasingly that access is through an optical link. The last decade has seen significant increase in the deployment of fiber in the access network, initially to the curb, but increasingly also directly to the business or home.




The Right IT


 



Should I go for IT through IIT?



You have not mentioned whether you have maths along with biology. To be eligible for the IIT you need to have PCM (physics, chemistry and maths) at the 10+2 level. IIT Mumbai, IIT Delhi, IIT Chennai, IIT Kanpur and IIT Kharagpur all have B. Tech / B.E. courses in information technology (IT). Biology students need not lose heart as they can choose from the diploma stream by joining any of the reputed computer training institutes. The IIITs are again for students with a PCM background. The IIITs at Allahabad, Gwalior, Hyderabad and Kolkata have been set up by the government to produce trained IT professionals. They conduct the following IT programmes: Four-year B. Tech. programme by IIIT, Allahabad; four-year B. Tech. programme and five-year integrated M. Tech. At IIIT, Hyderabad; five- year integrated post-graduate programme in information technology and management at the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Gwalior; and a four-year B.E. course in software technology and a B. Tech. Course in information technology at IIIT Kolkata. Admission to all the four institutes is done on the basis of objective-type entrancetests.



 



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What is a Robot?

          A robot is an automatic machine which can work like a human being. It can replace man in various branches of scientific and industrial tasks because it does not suffer from human limitations. It may or may not resemble a human being but definitely can work like a human being. The robots which resemble humans are called androids.

          The word ‘robot’ was first used in the play ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ by the Czechoslovak dramatist, Karel Capek, who had derived it from a Czech, word ‘Robota’ which means a forced or bonded labourer.



          The industrial revolution and automations stimulated the invention of robotic devices to perform certain human tasks. A human worker, however superb a craftsman he may be has certain limitations. He cannot work continuously in a hostile environment. He cannot work for long periods because he gets tired. He may be in short supply and may be expensive to hire. Modern industrial robotic devices aim to substitute a machine for man in hostile environments, cut costs by replacing expensive hand labour with cheap dependable machines, and provide versatile, all purpose robots or mechanical devices at predictable costs. Robot is such a machine which does not get tired, does not go on strike and does not demand increase in salary. 





          Robots can perform a variety of jobs such as welding and painting a car, house cleaning, cutting the grass of a lawn, working in nuclear plants or travelling to space. They can also play chess, work as a watchman, cut the wool of a sheep and pluck fruits from trees.



          Robots of higher level are capable of adapting to changes in environment. They are also capable of making decisions with the help of computers. A more complex robotive device in modern transportation is the automatic aircraft pilot which can control routine flights. An android robot named Shaky Robot was developed at Stanford Research Institute in California to do a variety of research jobs.



          Japan has the largest number of robots in the world. The United States of America, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Poland, France, India, etc are also using robotic devices for different purposes. All robotic devices are controlled by computers.



 


What is a Silicon Chip?

          The microchip or silicon chip has completely changed the colour of the electronic world by providing a new direction to it. It has led to the invention of electronic calculators, personal computers, digital watches, microwave ovens etc.

          The silicon chips are tiny crystals of silicon which contain large number of electronic components. Silicon is the most abundant element on earth as the crust of the earth is largely made of silicon. But silicon is not found in a free state as it is always combined with one or more additional elements. In one sq. cm. chip, about one million electronic components can be squeezed. The size of a chip is smaller than our finger tips. They can be made to carry very small electrical circuits, called microcircuits. These are used in transistor radios, digital watches, calculators and computers. They can be used in small electronic devices as the chips are very small.



          But how is silicon chips made? Silicon chips are made from a single crystal of silicon. Thin wafers of about 0.5 mm thick are sliced from a single crystal. One side of each wafer is first polished and then oxidized in a furnace: The disc is covered with a layer of photo resist material and then exposed to ultraviolet light through the clear sections of a mask. A light sensitive coating is developed and the exposed areas are dissolved away by the solvent. Unexposed areas are not affected so a pattern remains identical to the mask. The exposed areas are etched in hydrofluoric acid. Another solvent removes the resist. In a furnace, the wafer is exposed to chemicals which penetrate the silicon through the oxide gap to make transistors. The process is repeated several times. The wafer is coated with aluminium and a final layer of metals connects the components together. After careful inspection, chips are selected and released for use.



          Nowadays microchips are being used in electronic sewing machines, washing machines, word processors, and so on.