In this blog post, we’ll explore the basic principles and evolution of semiconductors, the relationship between transistors and integrated circuits, advancements in LED and display technologies, and the future direction of semiconductor technology in the age of artificial intelligence.
People refer to the present as the digital age. It is also said that the Information Revolution followed the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. Today, the term “digital” is no longer unfamiliar to modern people, and the ability to skillfully use electronic devices has become an integral part of daily life. We can access the internet anytime, anywhere, and exchange information at speeds that were once unimaginable. In fact, we now live in an era where we experience significant inconvenience if our internet connection is not smooth.
While countless technological advancements undoubtedly underpin these changes, it can be said that advances in electrical and electronic technology—particularly semiconductor technology—have been at the very center of them. Semiconductor technology will continue to play a crucial role in future changes as well, since digital technology is now integrated into nearly every system, and it is difficult to conceive of digital technology without semiconductors. As digital technology is widely utilized in the processing, manipulation, storage, and production of information, people are digitizing a wide variety of information. In this process, semiconductor technology is essential not only for processing and manipulating information but also for converting analog signals into digital signals. Therefore, understanding what semiconductor technology is, how semiconductors work, and how semiconductor technology will evolve in the future will serve as a crucial starting point for understanding the changes of our time.
A major turning point in the history of semiconductors was the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs in the United States in 1947. Since then, semiconductors have advanced rapidly, driven by advantages such as small size, low power consumption, and high mass-production potential. Numerous companies entered the semiconductor industry, including Samsung Electronics and Intel. As a result, computers that once relied on large vacuum tubes gradually disappeared, giving way to small, fast, and efficient electronic devices powered by semiconductor technology. Semiconductors have continuously evolved with the goals of miniaturization and integration, reaching a level by the early 2010s where over one billion transistors could be integrated onto a single chip. Since then, integration technology has continued to advance, leading to the emergence of chips with tens of billions of transistors in the 2020s. Notable examples include Apple’s M4, which integrates 28 billion transistors, and NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPU, which integrates 208 billion transistors. Even today, research and development continue to create semiconductors with even higher performance and energy efficiency through advancements in semiconductor manufacturing processes and design technologies.
The principles behind semiconductor manufacturing are based on fundamental properties of physics and chemistry. Semiconductors are primarily based on Group 14 elements such as silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge). These elements have four electrons in their outermost shell. Atoms generally seek to achieve a stable state in their outermost electron shell, and elements such as silicon form stable structures through covalent bonds, in which they share electrons with neighboring atoms. These bonds exhibit properties that fall between the electrical characteristics of insulators and those of metals, which are driven by free electrons; this makes them suitable for manufacturing semiconductor devices, as their electrical properties can be controlled based on external conditions and the addition of impurities. In particular, because these electrical properties can be precisely controlled, semiconductors have become the core material for implementing digital technology, which is expressed as “0” and “1,” or “ON” and “OFF.”
Subsequently, technology was developed to alter the electrical properties by adding small amounts of Group 13 or Group 15 elements to Group 14 elements, such as silicon and germanium. This process of adding impurities to semiconductors is called doping, and the resulting material is referred to as a doped semiconductor to distinguish it from a pure semiconductor, known as an intrinsic semiconductor.
Since Group 13 elements have three valence electrons, adding a Group 13 element to a large number of silicon atoms creates a state where one electron required for covalent bonding is missing. This creates a hole—a vacancy left by an electron—and a semiconductor in which these holes act as the primary charge carriers is called a P-type semiconductor. Conversely, since Group 15 elements have five valence electrons, adding a Group 15 element to a large number of silicon atoms results in one electron remaining even after participating in covalent bonding. A semiconductor in which this remaining electron acts as the primary charge carrier is called an N-type semiconductor. Both p-type and n-type semiconductors play a very important role in semiconductor engineering because they allow for higher electrical conductivity and better control of electrical characteristics compared to intrinsic semiconductors.
Various transistors can be fabricated using the p-type and n-type semiconductors described above, and an integrated circuit (IC) is created by integrating multiple transistors and other devices onto a single semiconductor substrate. ICs are used in a wide range of electronic devices that require data processing and control, including not only computers, cell phones, and calculators, but also refrigerators, televisions, and automobiles. As the integration density of ICs has increased, data processing speed and throughput have also improved significantly; this has enabled the development of various digital information processing technologies, including Internet and satellite communications. Today, the importance of semiconductors for high-performance computing is growing even more, particularly due to advancements in artificial intelligence and data centers.
Recently, efforts to integrate and miniaturize semiconductors have continued in order to process more data more quickly and efficiently. Research is also underway to enhance semiconductor performance by refining existing silicon-based technologies while utilizing new materials and structures. To this end, three-dimensional (3D) structures—which implement transistors in a three-dimensional manner, moving beyond traditional two-dimensional (2D) planar structures—have been developed, and various studies are being conducted to improve process technologies and device structures. Furthermore, since there are various limitations to improving performance through miniaturization alone, semiconductor technology is evolving toward combining multiple technologies—such as chiplets, advanced packaging, and stacking technologies—to achieve higher computational performance and energy efficiency.
In addition, semiconductors play a crucial role not only in processing electrical signals but also in generating and detecting light. A prime example is the light-emitting diode (LED). LEDs are devices designed to emit light primarily using compound semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN) or gallium arsenide (GaAs). They are widely used in the display and lighting industries due to their advantages, including high energy efficiency, long lifespan, and fast response times. In particular, LEDs can achieve a similar level of brightness using significantly less power than incandescent bulbs, and typical LED lighting products have a longer lifespan than conventional lighting. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the typical lifespan of high-quality white LED lighting products is approximately 30,000 to 50,000 hours or more, whereas the lifespan of an incandescent bulb is around 1,000 hours. Furthermore, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that, as of 2024, building and outdoor lighting account for approximately 8% of global electricity demand, making technologies that improve lighting efficiency critically important for energy conservation.
As LEDs gain attention as the next-generation light source, research continues to improve their efficiency, lifespan, and color rendering capabilities. Furthermore, thin-film transistor (TFT) technology—which enables the creation of flexible displays and screens in various forms—is another key area of development. As fields such as biomedical engineering (including biochips and biosensors) and materials engineering (including OLEDs and organic semiconductors) converge with semiconductor technology, the scope of semiconductor technology is expanding into diverse academic and industrial sectors.
Furthermore, with the advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) technology—which integrates semiconductors and communication functions into objects, enabling various devices to exchange data—the connected environment once described by the concept of “ubiquitous computing” is now being realized through a wide range of real-world services and technologies.
As explained earlier, semiconductor technology began with relatively simple physical principles and has continued to evolve, reaching ultra-fine processes at the nanometer scale—which are difficult to see with the naked eye—and complex device structures. IT technology has advanced in tandem with the development of semiconductor technology, and semiconductors have now become a core foundational technology across various industries—beyond computers and smartphones—including artificial intelligence, data centers, automobiles, telecommunications, energy, and healthcare. In the future, semiconductor technology will evolve not merely by reducing the size of transistors, but by simultaneously achieving higher computational performance and energy efficiency, while addressing new computational demands such as those posed by artificial intelligence. Of course, semiconductor technology alone will not bring about all these changes. However, it is clear that semiconductors will underpin the development of new technologies and industries and serve as one of the key starting points for ushering in a new era.
