Component density

The number of elements per chip in an IC is called as component density. There has been balanced increase in number of components which are fabricated on the single chip. Certainly there is an absolute limit on the component density that can be attained; it is imposed by the atomic structure of semiconductor material. A logic gate will never be devised that is smaller than the individual atom. Technology has not bumped up against the barrier yet.

MSI
In the medium-scale integration (MSI), there are 10 to 100 gates per chip. This allows miniaturization, but it is not a high level of the component density, relatively speaking. A benefit of MSI is that a large current is carried out by the individual gates. Both bipolar and MOS technologies can be adapted to MSI.

LSI
In large-scale integration, there are nearly 100 to 1000 gates per semiconductor chip. This is an order of magnitude denser than the MSI.Electronic wristwatches, single chip calculators, and microcomputers are examples of devices using LSI ICs. They are 10 times more sophisticated than MSI devices.

VLSI
Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) devices have around 1,000 to 10,000 components per chip. This is an order of magnitude denser than LSI. Complex microcomputers, and peripheral circuits like memory storage ICs, are made by using VLSI.

ULSI, ELSI, and OLSI
You may sometimes hear of ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI). Devices of this type have over 10,000 elements per chip. The principal use for this technology lies in ever larger random-access memory (RAM) capability for the personal computing.

In future, you can expect new names to arise to fit new technologies. But common sense will prevail over the ridiculous. While denoted like ELSI, for large-scale integration, might be coined, engineers have to be careful. What is very dense at one point in time might be ho-hum a few years later. No one wants to be kept into christening new invention with some laughable name like OLSI (overwhelmingly large scale in tegration), because all other superlatives have been used.