When starting a new electronics job today, one of the very first things that we tend to do is pick the integrated circuits that comprise the core of the design. This can be anything from a microcontroller as well as different controller ICs to a sprinkling of MOSFETs, opamps, as well as potentially some 7400- or 4000-series logic ICs to tie things together. Yet it hasn’t been that long because this level of high integration as well as miniaturization was firmly in the realm of science-fiction, with even NORBIT modules seeming futuristic.
Starting with the building of the very first point-contact transistor in 1947 as well as the bipolar junction transistor (BJT) in 1948 at Bell Labs, the electronics world would soon see the beginning of its most significant change to that point. Yet because of the fascinating geopolitical situations of the 20th century, this led to a interesting circumstance of parallel development, blatant copying of designs, as well as one of the most interesting stories in innovation history on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
A Smorgasbord of new Tech
Dual 3-input nor entrance implemented in RTL as utilized in the Apollo assistance Computer. (Credit: NASA)
After the innovation of the transistor, it was of program not a easy matter of just slapping some transistors on a silicon die to produce logic gates, putting it into a plastic (or ceramic) package, as well as taking over the world of digital electronics.
The very first viable method for producing logic gates with transistors in the early 1960s was resistor-transistor logic (RTL), which restricted the number of transistors needed. At the time, resistors were less expensive as well as transistors were still difficult to make. This method was utilized with the Apollo assistance Computer, which was developed utilizing discrete 3-input RTL-based nor gates.
The contending diode-transistor logic (DTL) circuit innovation had the advantages of utilizing less power as well as enabling for considerably much more fan-in (the number of supported inputs to a circuit), in addition to for fairly simple boost of fan-out (number of outputs) by utilizing extra diodes as well as transistors. A drawback of DTL was that the propagation delay with a circuit is fairly long because of the fee kept in the base region of the transistors.
This led to a number of attempts to manage this saturation issue, including an added capacitor, a Baker clamp as well as the Schottky transistor. The early 1960s saw the release of DTL-based logic chips, with Signetics’ SE100 series, complied with by Fairchild with the 930-series DTμL (micrologic) series. complying with DTL was transistor-transistor logic (TTL), which is relatively similar to DTL, however as the name suggests, utilizes only transistors.
The very first commercially created TTL micrologic chips were Sylvania’s universal High-Logic level (SUHL) as well as the successor SUHL II series. Texas Instruments (TI) would introduce the 5400 TTL series for armed forces applications in 1964, with two years later the 7400-series introduced for general applications.
Somewhat in parallel, emitter-coupled logic (ECL) likewise saw constant success into the 1980s. The primary advantage of ECL over methods like RTL as well as DTL in addition to TTL is that ECL is extremely quick because of its emitter-following nature, utilizing a single overdriven bipolar junction transistor (BJT). The style is such that none of the transistors utilized are ever in saturation, with little voltage swings between high as well as low levels (0.8 V) that enable for fairly quick changing times.
Although ECL has the drawbacks of needing fairly challenging power supplies with low noise, as well as drawing constant current, its high changing speeds made it an apparent option in mainframes as well as other applications where speed was the most essential factor. This included the Cray-1 very computer, in addition to a variety of IBM as well as VAX mainframes.
This contrasts with the advancement of the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), which saw its fundamental working principles already suggested in 1926, however took a much longer time to ended up being prepared for commercialization than the BJT, even though MOSFETs offer considerable size as well as scaling advantages over these. Yet when MOS innovation ended up being prepared for mass-production in the late 1960s, it triggered a little transformation that enabled not just the still typical 4000-series CMOS logic chips (introduced by RCA in 1968), however likewise the microprocessors that would power the house computer transformation of the 1970s.
Checking in with the CIA
Probably bit of the preceding history is unfamiliar to the typical reader, however where things get fascinating is with the advancement of these technologies in the Soviet Union as well as allied nations. As this part of the world was on less-than-friendly relations with the us as well as allies because the 1940s, it got mostly left out of the huge semiconductor transformation that was taking location mainly in the US.
Essentially this implied that the producing devices as well as know-how for producing transistors as well as MOSFETs was under strict embargo, with very first world countries being prohibited from exporting any type of such products into the USSR as well as allied territories. When we look at a top trick 1976 CIA file (declassified in 1999) titled USSR Seeks to develop advanced Semiconductor market With Embargoed Western Machinery, we can get a great perception of what the specify of things were at that point in time.
Even as the US, Europe, as well as Japan were ramping up their respective semiconductor industries, the USSR was lagging badly behind. Although USSR leadership acknowledged the large tactical advantage that contemporary semiconductor innovation would provide them, this was not a drawback that they would quickly overcome. This led to a large-scale effort by the USSR to illicitly import Western machinery for producing cutting-edge semiconductors as well as copy whatever innovation they might get their hands on.
The Joys of Standards
Four TTL ICs: Czechoslovak MH74S00, Texas Instruments SN74S251N, east German DL004D (74LS04), Soviet K155LA13 (7438).
Some of the result of this can be discovered in the numerous logic ICs that are compatible with 7400-logic series TTL ICs. While the European producers would comply with the pro Electron naming plan (e.g. FJH101 for the 7403 8-input NAND gate), the Soviet as well as to some degree Eastern Bloc producers utilized the Soviet IC designation scheme. This began with the NP0.034.000 standard in 1968 which saw its very first update in 1973 with GOST 18682—73.
Notable with IC logic chips created for the Soviet market is that they utilize metric pin spacing (2.5 mm as well as 1.2 mm) rather than Imperial (2.54 mm as well as 1.27 mm). In Eastern Bloc countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland, as well as east Germany, different IC designation schemes were used, with numerous of them matching the Western equivalent. In east Germany, for example, three 7400 compatible series existed — 6400, 7400 as well as 8400 — each targeting a different market with different temperature varieties as well as other properties.
Prefixes of Eastern European 7400 series logic chips.
Even much more confusingly, logic chips designated for export would in some cases be marked utilizing the US-style 7400 designation. The utilize of Cyrillic lettering instead of Latin characters can likewise be extremely confusing, particularly when a Cyrillic as well as Latin character look similar. The continued production of these series of logic ICs after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 at semiconductor plants which may not offer the printing of Cyrillic characters – forcing the utilize of romanized characters – has even more muddled the naming here.
Transforming Iron into Silicon
Stained glass with logo of the Czechoslovak business Tesla Radio in Pasáž Světozor, Vodičkova ulice, Praha. (Credit: František Hudeček)
For the people who resided in the USSR or any type of of its satellite nations, much of the technological transformation of the 1960s with the 1980s went mostly by unnoticed. because of the lack of semiconductor producing capability in the USSR, the ICs that got created mainly discovered their method into armed forces devices as well as related, leaving lower as well as dated ICs for the typical citizen, likewise resulting in valve innovation surviving in the USSR for decades beyond in much of the West.
Yet with the autumn of the Soviet Union, this all changed. With the embargoes against the USSR no longer in place, consumer products full of Western ICs flooded the markets in Eastern Europe as well as Russia, triggering the fast demise of business like the Czechoslovak Tesla, which had been producing quite much all electronics for the regional market there.
Military as well as other long-lasting contracts guaranteed that both the Soviet IC naming plan as well as special ICs make it through to this day, however the interesting days of spy-versus-spy of the chilly war have passed, leaving behind an oddly split history that will no question confuse numerous for decades to come.