Semiconductor manufacturing?

Factual Questions
1

can anyone explain to me the semiconductor fabrication process? feel free to go into as much detail as you want

Check out my site:
Chief’s Domain

2

I’m not sure what you want to know, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t be qualified to answer.

Have you read Feynman Lectures on Computation by Richard P. Feynman? The book gives a solid foundation on all aspects of how computers work at the deepest level. The last chapter “Physical aspects of computation” includes a discussion of how semiconductors were designed and manufactured as of the lecture dates (1984-86). The technology has evolved considerably since then, of course. That part of the book isn’t current, but it will give you an idea of how it’s done, if the general idea is all you need.

I highly recommend the book as a whole, especially the earlier chapters.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes. (Oscar Wilde)

3

This site explains how semiconductors and microchips are grown. http://cpusite.examedia.nl/docs/ce_sand_chip.html

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4

{{{can anyone explain to me the semiconductor fabrication process? feel free to go into as much detail as you want}}}—Chief

Could you put a finer point on that one? You’re asking about a field that is, shall we say, deep.

I’ll dig up a reference for you, but the kids are snoozing right now, and the book on IC engineering that I’m thinking of is on their bookshelf.

The LION has provided a good link for introductory information on the subject, although it does gloss over spectifc donor and acceptor dopant elements.

TheHungerSite.com
“If our lives are indeed the sum-total of the choices we’ve made, then we cannot change who we are; but with every new choice we’re given, we can change who we’re going to be.”

5

The January Smithsonian magazine had a pretty good article on semiconductor manufacturing, specifically Intel. The link to the on-line article is:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues00/jan00/intel.html

6

Your children own books on IC Engineering? I thought my niece was advanced because she got through The Phantom Tolbooth earlier than I did!

7

There’s a ton of information in Microchip Fabrication, probably far more than you want.

The basic operations are:

Layering - adding a thin layer of material to the surface of a wafer.

Patterning - photographically creating a patern on the surface of a wafer, used as a mask for one of the other steps.

Doping - Adding dopants (an element used to alter conductivity) to the material near the surface of the wafer.

Heat treating - to “drive in” dopants that weren’t deposited deep enough, bond metals, change metal properties, etc.

Planarizing - Chemical-mechanical polishing to remove material or layering to add material to make the surface flat enough for further patterning.

It takes around 300-400 process steps to make a complex IC.

Current hot topics include:

Low-K dielectrics - insulators between metal interconnections. The lower the K, the faster and cleaner the signal propagation.

High-K dielectrics - the insulator between the gate electrode and the channel is currently silicon oxide about 7 or fewer atoms thick. This is difficult to do. Higher-K materials would allow thicker layers.

Advanced lithography - state-of-the-art patterning is done with 193 nm deep-UV light. This can make 180 nanometer line widths (with some sexy techniques). The next step is probably extreme UV (50 nanometers and less), although there are other contenders. Lens materials and photographic emulsion (resist) chemistry are getting really exotic …

jrf

8

Oh yeah, some other links:

Semiconductor Manufacturing Tour

Semiconductor Processing - Index

How to Make a Chip

The Semiconductor Manufacturing Process

The Semiconductor Manufacturing Process (another page with the same title)

jrf

9

{{{Your children own books on IC Engineering? I thought my niece was advanced because she got through The Phantom Tolbooth earlier than I did!}}}—sdimbert

Naw. :slight_smile: I just have a house full of bookcases, and those particular books are on top of their bookcase temporarily. The next house will have a library wing…geeze the books we have! :rolleyes:

The two references that I had in mind were:

    • Milnes, Aurthur George: “Semiconductor Devices and Integrated Electronics,” Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, Inc., 1980, ISBN 0-442-23660-3.
    • Hamilton, Douglas J., and Howard, William G.: “Basic Integrated Circuit Engineering,” chaps. 1-3, 14, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1975, ISBN 0-07-025763-9.

Although both are old texts, (from my college days) they both present the manufacturing process in an easily understood format. For this purpose, they are actually better than most of the more contemporary texts on my shelves.

Reference #1 is just good through and through....plenty of equations for those that want that kind of thing.

I have used the introductory chapters of reference #2 in past classes, and the content was very well received. Chapter 14 is a good introduction to MOS devices, and functions as a logical launching point for (x)MOS theory.

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