Electronics industry

The electronics industry is the economic sector that produces electronic devices. It emerged in the 20th century and is today one of the largest global industries. Contemporary society uses a vast array of electronic devices built-in automated or semi-automated factories operated by the industry. Products are primarily assembled from metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) transistors and integrated circuits, the latter principally by photolithography and often on printed circuit boards.^{[citation needed]}

The industry's size, the use of toxic materials, and the difficulty of recycling have led to a series of problems with electronic waste. International regulation and environmental legislation have been developed to address the issues.^{[citation needed]}

The electronics industry consists of various sectors. The central driving force behind the entire electronics industry is the semiconductor industry sector,^[1] which has annual sales of over $481 billion as of 2018.^[2] The largest industry sector is e-commerce, which generated over $29 trillion in 2017