① There is one thing in the world that's smaller than your fingernail. But without it, almost all of our electronic products might not work. It's the microchip! It is one of the most important inventions in human history. Here is some information for you to learn it.
②What are microchips? Don't be confused with potato chips. Microchips are very small electronic devices (设备) people use to keep and deal with information. A microchip is a set of connected electronic components (组件) that are imprinted (刻) on a very small chip. There are mainly two kinds of microchips: logic chips and memory chips.
③ Logic chips are the "brains" of electronic devices – they deal with information to finish a task. Memory chips store information.
④When asked who invented the microchip, you may be surprised that two men invented almost the same thing at nearly the same time. But they didn't even know what each other was working on. They were US engineers Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce. From 1958 to 1959, both of them were working on an answer to the same question: how to shrink the devices.
⑤In designing ( 设 计 ) an electronic device like a computer, it is always necessary to increase the number of components. However, as there are more components, the machines will be big and heavy. How to include these components in a smart way was the problem they wanted to solve. In the end, Kilby used germanium ( 锗 ) while Noyce used silicon ( 硅 ) to make their microchips, which can include more components in a smaller size.
⑥ Where are microchips used? We can see them in many electronic products, from computers to cell phones, TVs, cameras, cars and airplanes. They are also used in GPS devices and ID cards. However, it's not easy to make them. A chip may need to "travel" to many countries and areas before it becomes the final product.
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