Advantages of IC technology

Integrated circuits have many advantages over individual, or discrete, components.

Compactness
An asset of IC design is economy of space; ICs are more compact than equivalent circuits made from individual transistors, capacitors, diodes, and resistors.

A corollary to this is the fact which is far more complex circuits can be built, and kept down to a reasonable size, by using ICs as compared with the discrete components.  Therefore, you see notebook computers, known as laptops, with capabilities more advanced than early computers which took up whole rooms.

High speed
Another corollary to the compactness of ICs is the fact that the interconnections among components are physically small, making the high switching speeds possible. Electric currents travel very fast, but not instantaneously. The less time charge carriers requires to get from the component X to component Y, generally the more computations are possible within a given span of time, and the less time is required for complex operations.

Low power requirement
The other advantage of ICs is that they use less power than the equivalent discrete component circuits. This is important if batteries are to be used for operation. As ICs use so little current, they generate less heat than their discrete-component equivalents. This translates into efficiency.  It minimizes the problems that plague equipment which gets hot with use, such as frequency drift and generation of the internal noise.


Reliability
Integrated circuits fail less, per component-hour of use, than appliances which make use of discrete components. This is a result of the fact that all the interconnections are sealed within IC case, preventing corrosion or intrusion of dust. The reduced failure rate translates in less downtime, or time during which the equipment is out of service.

Ease of maintenance
Integrated-circuit technology lowers the maintenance costs, because repair procedures are simplified when failures occur.Several appliances use sockets for ICs, and replacement is simply a matter of finding faulty IC, unplugging it, and plugging in the new one. Special desoldering equipment is used with the appliances having ICs soldered directly to circuit boards.

Modular construction
Modern IC appliances make use of modular construction.  In this scheme, individual ICs perform defined functions within the circuit board; the circuit board or card, in turn, fits into socket and has a specific function. Computers, programmed with the customized software, are used by repair technicians to locate faulty card in the appliance. The whole card is pulled and replaced, by getting the appliance back to consumer in shortest time possible. Then the computer is used to troubleshoot faulty card, getting card ready for use in the next appliance which happens to come along with the failure in the same card.

Modular construction can be theoretically used with the discrete-component design. But this is done quite rarely. When the device is sophisticated enough to require modular construction, IC design is usually required to keep the size within reason. Can you envision many people, or perhaps a crane, pulling and by replacing a 500-pound, 10-by-15-foot card from the appliance as big as a house.