The evolution of the IC can be divided into three stages. When the number of devices was below 1,000, they were called simply "integrated circuits." When the number of devices increased to between 1,000 and 100,000, this was called "Large Scale Integration" (LSI); and when the number of devices became still larger, this was called "Very Large Scale Integration" (VLSI).
由於技術的不斷改良，積體電路的發展可分為幾個階段：當電子元件數在一千以下時，叫做積體電路（IC）；元件數介於一千至十萬則稱之為大型積體電路（LSI）；而更複雜者則以超大型積體電路（VLSI）稱之。