A
An impurity from column III of the periodic table, which adds a mobile hole to silicon,
thereby making it more P-type and accepting of electrons. Boron is the primary acceptor
used to dope silicon. Compare donor.
Applying Concurrent Teams to the Product-To-Market
process. An Intersil program that has established a sector-wide procedure for new product
development. The highlights of ACT-PTM are (1) the use of concurrent development
teams (with representatives from engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and quality); (2)
the direct participation of customers; and (3) the formalization of procedures to
enhance the quality of product definition and market launch. See also concurrent engineering.
Analog-to-Digital converter. A circuit board or integrated circuit that
converts analog input signals to digital equivalent-weight output signals. Integrated
circuit converters are a major product area for Intersil and an important element of
signal processing. See D/A converter and signal processing.
Libraries of standard cells designed for high performance and a broad application
range, developed by Intersil in partnership with Siemens and Toshiba. The Advancell
library features high-performance, essential primitive functions such as simple gates,
latches/flip-flops, buffers and input/output, as well as a broad family of
macrocells. See
standard cell.
A processing tool used to transfer lithographic patterns from a photomask to a silicon
wafer. Four types of aligners are in use within Intersil: contact, proximity, projection,
and steppers. Contact aligners were the earliest type, and have the disadvantage of
bringing the photomask in direct contact with the wafer, thereby inviting particulate
contamination. The other types avoid direct mask contact and bring increasing line-width
control and resolution. See also lithography, mask and stepper.
Arithmetic Logic Unit. One of the three essential components of a
microprocessor, the other two being data registers and control. The ALU performs addition
and subtraction, logic operations, masking, and shifting (multiplication and division).
A continuous representation of phenomena in terms of points along a scale, each point
merging imperceptibly into the next. An analog voltage, for example, may take any value.
Real world phenomena, such as heat and pressure, are analog. Compare digital.
Analog Dielectric Isolation. An analog integrated circuit
technique using dielectric isolation technology. See dielectric
isolation.
Analog integrated circuits that can be specified by a designer using semicustom design
techniques to meet a specific design requirement. An area of Intersil specialization.
Compare custom integrated circuit and see CAD and semicustom IC.
Processing of analog signals in the analog domain. Includes the capability of
amplification, filtering, signal conditioning, multiplication. and comparison of analog
signals.
A unit of length. 10,000 angstroms equals 1 micron. 108 angstroms equals 1
cm. A silicon atom has a lattice spacing of 5.43 angstroms. Symbol: Å. See also micron.
American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
An eight-bit code for alpha-numeric character transfer adopted by the American Standards
Association to achieve universal compatibility among data devices. Pronounced
"ask-ee."
Application Specific Integrated Circuit. Semiconductor
circuits specifically designed to suit a customer's particular requirement, as opposed to
a DRAM or microcontroller, which are general-purpose parts. See custom integrated circuit and semicustom IC.
Average Selling Price.
The step in semiconductor manufacturing in which the device is encased in a plastic,
ceramic, or other package. In some cases, the chip is assembled directly on a printed
circuit board.
Application Specific Standard Product. A standard product
that has been designed to implement a specific application function, as opposed to a
general-purpose product such as a RAM. Intersil offers numerous ASSPs, including SLICs,
data communication ICs and power supply ICs.
Automatic Test Program Generation. Automatic translation
from a test description language into tester-specific format. The end result is a test
program used by a specific IC tester to test a specific device. It can also describe an
automated method of generating patterns for use in engineering workstation simulation of
ASIC devices. See engineering workstation.
Advanced Very Large Scale Integration. A mainstream
CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) process technology used at Intersil's
Research Triangle Park Microelectronics Center in North Carolina. This process provides
high density by virtue of its 1.25-micron feature size, and is designed with inherent
latch-up resistance. Analog and radiation-tolerant variants of AVLSI also are available.
