How is such a sophisticated integrated circuit made?
A small component can store tens of thousands of data. The integrated circuit is really amazing. So how is such a magical thing made? Let SAM Sputter Targets answer it for you.
Wafer manufacturing
At present, the mainstream integrated circuits in the industry are all based on Si, so first we need to obtain the raw materials for processing, that is, high-purity silicon. SAM Sputter Target offers high purity silicon materials and is an excellent choice for you. After extracting high-purity silicon, we need to consider how to obtain single crystal silicon with the same crystal orientation. The manufacturer will first obtain one silicon germanium by pulling crystal, in which process N-type silicon or P-type silicon can be performed. The silicon is then polished, polished, sliced, and polished. The silicon wafers used in the industry are double-sided polished, like a disc without holes in the middle, as shown in the following picture.
Many integrated circuits can be processed on a single wafer. However, a piece of pure silicon is not enough, we also need to plate an oxide layer on both sides of pure silicon. Based on the unique advantages of silicon, it is easy to add oxygen to the furnace tube to obtain the natural oxide layer SiO2 insulation layer. This layer is very thin but has considerable significance.
Wafer processing
This will probably repeat 20-30 mainstream processes, including photoresist, exposure, soft/hard baking, photoresist removal, etching, doping (injection, diffusion), annealing, copper plating (metal sputtering), copper removal, etc. The above steps are required to be repeated.
Electrical measurement
After the above steps, many small grids appear on a circular wafer, as shown in the following picture.
Each grid is the prototype of the chip we hope to get. After that, it is necessary to measure the I-V, C-V and other electrical characteristics of the processed film, and a special measuring instrument is completed by probe analysis.
Dicing and packaging
This step is done in the packaging factory. The fab transports the finished wafer to the chip package factory. The packager dices the wafer through the device to get many identical dies. The dies are smaller and thinner than the CPUs we see on the market because they are not yet packaged. The package is to fix the die on a plastic or ceramic base, and lead out many pins, which are finally sealed with glue.
Stanford Advanced Materials (SAM) Corporation is a global supplier of various sputtering targets such as metals, alloys, oxides, ceramic materials. We regularly update knowledge and interesting stories of sputtering targets on our website. If you are interested, please visit https://www.sputtertargets.net/ for more information.
