DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRONICS
Electronics is a field of engineering and applied physics dealing with the design and application of electronic circuits. The operation of circuits depends on the flow of electrons for generation, transmission, reception and storage of information.
Today it is difficult to imagine our life without electronics. It surrounds us everywhere. Electronic devices are widely usedin scientific research and industrial designing; they control the work of plants and power stations, calculate the trajectories of space-ships and help the people discover new phenomena of nature. Automatization of production processes and studies on living organisms became possible due to electronics.
The invention of vacuum tubes at the beginning of the 20th century was, the starting point of the rapid growth of modern electronics. Vacuum tubes assisted in manipulation of signals. The development of a large variety of tubes designed for specialized functions made possible the progress in radio communication technology before the World War II and in the creation of early computers during and shortly after the war.
The transistor invented by American scientists W. Shockly, J. Bardeen and W. Brattain in 1948 completely replaced the vacuum tube. The transistor, a small piece of a semiconductor with three electrodes, had great advantages over the best vacuum tubes. It provided the same functions as the vacuum tube but at reduced weight, cost, power consumption, and with high reliability. With the invention of the transistor all essential circuit functions could be carried out inside solid bodies. The aim of creating electronic circuits with entirely solid-state components had finally been realized. Early transistors could respond at a rate of a few million times a second. This was fast enough to serve in radio circuits, but far below the speed needed for high speed computers or for microwave communication systems.
The progress in semiconductor technology led to the development of the integrated circuit (1С), which was discovered due to the efforts of John Kilby in 1958. There appeared a new field of science — integrated electronics. The essence of it is batch processing. Instead of making, testing and assembling discrete components on a chip one at a time, large groupings of these components together with their interconnections were made all at a time. 1С greatly reduced the size of devices, lowered manufacturing costs and at the same time they provided high speed and increased reliability.
3. Просмотрите текст еще раз. Ответьте на вопросы, ис
пользуя информацию текста.
1. What is electronics? 2, Can you imagine modern life without electronics? 3. Where are electronic devices used? 4. What was the beginning of electronics development? 5. What made the progress in radio communication technology possible? 6. What is the transistor? 7. When was the transistor invented?
8. What aim was realized with the invention of the transistor? 9.When were integrated circuits discovered? 10. What advantages did the transistors have over the vacuum tubes?
4. Догадайтесь о значении следующих интернациональных слов и словосочетаний:
Electronics; electrons; physics; information; microelectronics; industrial design; to calculate trajectories; phenomena of nature; automatization of production processes; organisms; vacuum tubes; specialized functions; progress in radio communication technology; transistor; electrode; components; to realize; communication system; technology; discrete components; chip.
5. Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих
словосочетаний:
Прикладная физика; передача и прием информации; поток электронов; трудно представить; научные исследования; промышленное проектирование; вычислять траекторию космических кораблей; обнаруживать явления природы; благодаря электронике; отправная точка; способствовать управлению сигналами; быстрый рост; разнообразие ламп; создание первых компьютеров; полностью заменил; полупроводниковый кристалл; уменьшить вес; сократить стоимость; потребление электроэнергии; высокая надежность; твердотельные компоненты; довольно быстро... но гораздо ниже; высокоскоростной компьютер; микроволновые системы связи; полупроводниковая технология; область науки; интегральная схема; пакетная обработка; сборка дискретных компонентов на кристалле; снизить производственные затраты; обеспечить высокую скорость.
6. Переведите следующие «цепочки существительных».
Запомните, что переводить ряд существительных, не
связанных предлогами, следует, как правило, с конца.
Power consumption; power consumption change; signals manipulation; transistor invention; circuit functions; communication systems, data processing system; integrated circuits development; science field; process control; automatization processes control; circuit components; size reduction; electronics development; communication means; problem solution; space exploration; pattern recognition; customers accounts; air traffic control.