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Semiconductor Chips

It is an integrated circuit (IC) that contains thousands of transistors. A transistor is an electronic component that can be either on or off. It can be switched from one state to the other when an electric impulse is sent. The transistor can so represent a bit in the memory.

Advantages of using semiconductor chips:

  1. It is cheaper to manufacture than other type of memory storage devices
  2. Chips are small, so the size of the computer is reduced as well
  3. It is very dense, it can store thousands or even millions of bytes
  4. It is very efficient
  5. The whole chip can be easily replaced if the chip has a fault

There are two main types of semiconductor memory chips in a computer, which are the random access memory (RAM) and read only memory (ROM). 

RAM ROM
When a program is run, the working data and the instruction are temporarily stored in the RAM. ROM is used by the computer manufacturer to store the systems programs and they control the fundamental operations.
Data can be read from any word or written onto any word in the RAM Data can only be read from the ROM. The contents cannot be overwritten.
All the data held in the RAM are lost when the computer is switched off. So RAM is volatile. ROM is non-volatile
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