Category talk:Microchips

Proposed merge with Category:Integrated circuits

 Oppose Microchips focus on the functionality, integrated circuits on the technology and packaging. A better name might be advisable, but no merge. --Foroa (talk) 07:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

That's nothing to do with the current choice of category names (and by implication their stated purpose) though- at best it's a useful coincidence. If that's what one wants, it should be clearly defined and part of the category names and hierarchy. Assuming we were to retain the existing categories, what would you call the microchips category that sufficiently differentiated it from the Integrated Circuits one (i.e. its parent) and described its purpose "as is"?

Bear in mind that the "Microchips" category is too big (someone else already tagged it for that reason) and so will have to be split into subcategories anyway.

It sounds like you're not so much in favour of retaining separate "integrated circuit" and "microchip" categories per se, so much as you're actually wanting to exploit the (coincidental) contents of those categories as a basis for "by technology" and "by packaging" subcategorisations-right?

That's fair enough, but we need to have clear idea what those categories are, and they shouldn't have the existing names. (One will have to remain the parent anyway, so it may as well be "integrated circuits", as it already is). Ubcule (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I would have said the chip was the semiconductor and the IC the product, but I guess at another level an integrated circuit is the structure implemented on the chip. I think you need to get some clarity on a category tree and classification guidelines, otherwise the categories will drift back into a hodgepodge. Dankarl (talk) 13:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The term "Integrated Circuit" was first used in the early 1960s and is more formal than "Microchip". "Microcircuit" was also used in the 1960s while "Microchip" is much later. See New Scientist February 20, 1964 and Popular Mechanics September 1965.
Microchip is also a term used by U.S. Forest Service for taking a small sample from trees.[1] -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 22:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

It's notable that the English Wikipedia article Integrated_circuit treats "microchip" as a synonym for "integrated circuit", and that is a fairly high-traffic article that probably required some level of consensus.

If they treat it as synonymous, then use of the two different terms IMHO isn't a good differentiator here. Either we should clarify what the two category titles are *meant* to represent, or they should be merged. Ubcule (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

 Comment Despite Wikipedia redirecting microchip to integrated circuit the terms are not synonymous, nor is that implied (necessarily) by a redirect. An integrated circuit does not always consist of a single monolithic chip. See hybrid integrated circuit for instance. That article concentrates on thick film technology but other sorts of hybrid technology, stripline and microstrip, are commonplace at microwave frequencies. I'm not sure about category namings, but I think a useful categorisation would distinguish between photographs of an IC package (where there is no telling what is actually inside, unless you have the data sheet or are the designer) and photographs of the naked chip. Of course, there will be some pathological cases such as File:Integrated-circuit-open.jpg. SpinningSpark 15:43, 11 November 2012 (UTC)