The Difference Between Integrated Circuits and Chips

A different focus

Chips include various types, such as baseband chips, voltage conversion chips, and so on. The scope of integrated circuits is much broader. Putting resistors, capacitors, and diodes together can be considered an integrated circuit. It may be a chip for analog signal conversion, or it may be a chip for logical control. However, in general, this concept leans more towards the fundamental level.

Integrated circuits refer to electron circuits that are made up of active devices, passive elements, and their interconnections that are closely related and internally correlated, and are fabricated on a semiconductor substrate or insulating base material. It can be divided into three main branches: semiconductor integrated circuits, film integrated circuits, and hybrid integrated circuits.

Different Production Methods

Chips use single-crystal silicon wafers (or III-V family, such as gallium arsenide) as the base, and then use technologies such as photolithography, doping, and CMP to make components such as MOSFETs or BJTs, and then use thin film and CMP technologies to make wires, thereby completing chip production.

An integrated circuit uses a certain process to integrate the necessary transistors, resistors, capacitors, and inductors in a circuit into one or a few small semiconductor chips or dielectric substrates, and then package them in a tube.