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From silicon to chips: Do you know how semiconductors are manufactured step by step?
Semiconductor device manufacturing is a complex process responsible for producing a variety of chips, including microprocessors, microcontrollers, and memory modules. In this process, electronic circuits are gradually formed on wafers, usually made of pure single crystal silicon. Although silicon is the most commonly used material, many special applications are produced using various compound semiconductors.
The key to semiconductor manufacturing lies in a series of photolithography, physical and chemical processing steps, such as thermal oxidation, thin film deposition, ion implantation and etching.
These processes take place in highly specialized semiconductor manufacturing plants, often called "fabs." At the center of the fab is the clean room, one of the most important environments for ensuring product quality. In the production of modern semiconductor devices, such as 14/10/7 nanometer technology, the production process often takes up to 15 weeks, with 11 to 13 weeks being the industry average production cycle.
The production process is almost completely automated, with dedicated automated material handling systems transporting wafers from one machine to another. There are usually multiple chips on a wafer. These chips are called "die" and are separated by a die cutting process on the completed wafer for further assembly and packaging. Before the final product, wafers are shipped in specially sealed plastic boxes called FOUPs (wafer boxes). These FOUPs maintain a nitrogen atmosphere inside to prevent copper from oxidizing on the wafer, as copper is one of the materials used for interconnections within modern semiconductors.
The environment inside wafer processing equipment and FOUPs is called a microenvironment, which helps increase yield, which is the number of functioning devices on a wafer.
This microenvironment is implemented through EFEM (Equipment Front End Module), which receives wafers from FOUPs and introduces them into the machine. Many machines also process wafers in clean nitrogen or vacuum environments to reduce contamination and improve process control. Fabs require large amounts of liquid nitrogen to maintain the atmosphere inside production equipment and FOUPs, which are constantly filled with nitrogen. An air curtain or mesh structure can be set up between FOUP and EFEM to reduce the amount of moisture entering the FOUP and improve yield.
Many of the equipment manufacturing companies used in industrial semiconductor manufacturing processes include ASML, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electronics, and Rih Pak Research, among others. In the process of manufacturing a semiconductor device, the feature size at each step is determined by photolithography, which means that the design or pattern on the semiconductor device can be defined.
Feature size refers to the smallest line width that can be made during the semiconductor manufacturing process.
The measurement of feature size is based on the minimum feature size of the semiconductor process technology node, usually in nanometers. Although the names of these technology nodes were not initially clearly related to functional feature sizes, this concept gradually became blurred over time.
Historical review
The development of semiconductor manufacturing technology has a long history. In 1955, an accidental discovery by Carl Frosh and Lincoln Derek at Bell Labs made them aware of the effect of oxidizing the surface of silicon wafers, which was of great significance to future semiconductor technology discussions. By 1957, they were able to produce silicon oxide field-effect transistors, which is believed to be the first production of planar field-effect transistors.
Over time, the size of semiconductor wafers has continued to increase, from 25mm in 1960 to 200mm, and eventually became the 300mm standard. This process led to the introduction of automation technology and the use of more efficient equipment to complete production. As the demand in the semiconductor market increases, manufacturers have also begun to design more durable devices to ensure their adaptability in different markets.
Many new technologies are emerging in modern semiconductor devices, including FinFET technology, which provides higher energy efficiency and faster performance at the 22nm node. By 2018, a variety of new transistor architectures have emerged, such as GAAFET, which represents another new development direction of semiconductor technology.
Step list
The entire semiconductor device manufacturing process includes multiple steps, including wafer processing, photolithography, ion implantation, etching, and packaging. Together, these steps form the core of semiconductor manufacturing and rely on the support of specialized manufacturing equipment and clean environments.
The entire production process is usually carried out in a wafer fab, which operates efficiently 24 hours a day and requires a large amount of pure water to ensure the purity of the product. Each wafer undergoes rigorous testing to ensure its performance meets expected requirements.
In such a rapidly developing industry, new technologies and materials are constantly changing the future of semiconductors. What surprises will the future semiconductor industry bring?
