Advanced Very Large Scale Integration

Advanced very large-scale integration refers to the process of fabricating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistors on a single silicon semiconductor microchip. Advanced very large-scale integration is the successor to large scale-integration, medium-scale integration and small-scale integration technologies.

The idea dates back to 1958 when engineer Jack Kilby found a way to build smaller electrical circuits by making all the components and the chip out of the same block of semiconductor material. Kilby's work overcame a number of problems that engineers at the time came up against when trying to build advanced circuitry. The first problem was that bigger circuits required more components and connections. As these circuits grew in complexity, it became harder, if not impossible, to guarantee that each tiny component could be assembled without generating a single faulty connection.

The second key difficulty was the size of the circuits. A complex circuit, like a computer, was dependent on speed. If the components were too large or required long wires, the signals would not be able to travel fast enough through the circuit.

Kilby's innovation led to the creation of the first advanced level microprocessors in the late 1970s. It is now one of the most widely used technologies for microchip processors, integrated circuits and component designing. While technology was initially designed to support hundreds of thousands of transistors, modern microchips can now support billions of them.