What does 'integration density' in the context of integrated circuits and electronics mean? I've seen the term tossed around a lot, but I've never found a satisfactory definition.
Electronic – What does ‘integration density’ mean
integrated-circuit
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Danger Will Robinson!
It refers to a "raw die" -- meaning the chip is not packaged. You will get a piece of exposed silicon (possibly encapsulated or partially so, but typically not).
If you are asking this question, then I'm pretty sure it is not what you want. ;-)
If you want an example...
Consider the Max3967A from Maxim Semiconductor.
If you want to buy the conventional packaged version the part number is MAX3967AETG+, but if you just want the raw microchip inside (no package) you want part number MAX3967AE/D.
In the catalog the "package" for the "/D" version will be "DIE" -- meaning no package.
From page 12 of the datasheet:
You can see they dimension the die in the drawing for you. You will need access to a wire bonding machine in order to use a raw die (among other things).
In this microscope image, you can see two wires bonded (attached) to the package in the center.
And in this photo of a thick-film hybrid circuit (taken with a little less magnification) you can see the wires bonded directly to the various die as well as the package forming the connections between the frame and the outside world:
it is mostly only useful for other IC manufacturers if they want to integrate it into their ICs. So you are right, it's not what I want.
Why you can buy raw dies:
- MCM -- What you described in your comment is called a Multi-Chip Module (MCM) and, yes, you are correct.
- Low Cost -- It is also common in really cheap electronic devices to skip the cost of packaging. They use unpackaged dies and glue them to the substrate (PCB), bond the pads to the board directly, and then encapsulate the die in an epoxy to secure, seal, and protect everything.
- High Reliability -- It can also be done this way for speciality applications where the absence of a package (and the manufacturing and soldering points of failure that come with it) are advantageous for reliability.
I'll not design the whole thing for you, but plant some seeds.
I could see the foundation of this project being ripple counters. Ripple counters 'count' the number of clocks coming in with a binary output representation. They're available (at least they used to be - do people still use TTL and CMOS discrete logic ICs?) in a variety of sizes - 4 bit, 8 bit, etc.
You could start by using a representation of the input AC frequency to generate the 'tick' signal using a counter, and some gates to detect when the AC peak count reaches the expected line frequency.
You then have multiple ripple counters to count those ticks and represent the hours, minutes and seconds (as well as controlling the LEDs), and some more TTL logic to control when to increment the minute counter/reset the second counter, when to increment the hour counter/reset the minutes and seconds, and when to reset all of them to zero (i.e. midnight).
Once you come up with an idea of how many gates you'll actually need, you'll understand why these things are micro based these days.
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Best Answer
The "integration" is as in "integrated circuit". A high integration density means a large number of components (usually transistors, in contexts where integration density is being discussed) in a small area.