Semiconductor wafer and its parts and types What are wafers? Wafers are the heart of almost every electronic product. In industries, Semiconductor chips and other devices has reached to the extreme high level including health science and other applications. Day after day, it has become a very dynamic and never ending technology in the world of semiconductors. Production of wafer has become the one of most challenging areas of modern technology and gradually follows the principle that each new generation chips must be smaller, thinner and more efficient and affordable. In the world of electronics, the wafer is also known as a slice or a substrate. It’s a thin slice of semiconductor material consisting of usually single crystal silicon used …show more content…
These silicon wafers has thin slice of silicon which are used in many types of electronics. Every wafer is made from very high quality silicon semiconductor; making the production of such circuits easy. The technology is kept on developing in integrated circuits as developers push to make it more smaller and better circuits (wiseGeek, 2003). Developments in this technology proceed to enlarge continuously, according to a prediction of Moore's "The number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months” (Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder, 2014) although critics of Moore's Law have pointed out that the technology cannot advance infinitely, which means that a ceiling will be reached at some …show more content…
A die is a small block of semiconductor material constituting one integrated circuits. The wafer is cut into many small pieces called as diced, with which having a copy of the circuits. Each of the cut pieces are called as die. There are many plural forms of die which include: dice, die and die (Stonestrom, Vaught, & Neukermans, 1990). Each die in the wafer are separated by a gap for safely separating them into individual chip known as cut spaces or scribe lines. A single die is considered as a TEG (Test Element Group) that is used for testing whether the chip works properly or not. As the wafers are in diameter, but the chips are mostly in squares thus leaving the edge of the wafers as wastes known as edge die. These wastes can be minimized as the wafer becomes large. An orientation mark either as notch (a small kerf of 1 mm at the very wafer edge) or flat (used in previous technologies of 200mm wafers and below) is made to mark the crystalline orientation of the wafer ground material single crystal. A chosen edge of the wafer is sliced a little for the orientation identification of the wafer known as flat
But the grain size ranges between 3 μm to 6 μm, 3 μm to 8 μm and 4 μm to 9 μm for 4 mm, 6 mm and 8 mm plates respectively. Higher polygon pin face edges approach circular pin, this vanishes the pulse formation in stirring. This leads to distorted grains due to decrease in dynamic area or lack of sweeping between tool and material. Whereas a low number of polygon pin face edges generates higher dynamic area. This shows the coarse grains relatively. The grain size ranges between 5 μm to 7 μm, 6 μm to 8 μm and 7 μm to 9 μm for 4 mm, 6 mm and 8 mm plates
Die-forming of sheet metal has been around for thousands of years. Originally the metal was manipulated by hand and hammered into the depression, by utilizing crude grooves carved into wood or stone. This technique was used to make spouts, handles, and other forms. Since then, however; they have undergone a remarkable technological evolution. Mate-female conforming dies to create hollow forms by using hydraulic pressure or drop hammer pressure, changed die-forming forever (Paisin, 2013).
Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) are systems that are designed on a micro metre scale and have become more popular as the demand for devices to get smaller has increased. The main uses of these systems are for sensors, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes and other such devices like microscopy and inkjet nozzles for example. There are many materials that can be used for MEMS as the cost of the material is almost eradicated due to the micro size of the systems being produced. This brings materials such as gold, platinum and diamond can be used, as these materials have some properties which are very desirable for a MEM systems. The most common material that is currently used in MEMS is silicon and silicon based compounds as they possess many good properties for MEMS production. Most of the materials chosen for MEMS are semiconductor materials Figure 1 shows the properties of commonly used materials.
The way 3D printing works is by taking virtual designs from a special computer aided design or modeling software and “splits” them into separate cross-sections for the machine to use as a guide. The printer then lays down successive layers of the liquid or powdered material required (metal, plastic, paper, ceramics etc.) and eventually builds the model through these series of cross sections, creating the object desired. This printing layer by layer slowly develops the object.
Due to the way material is put together additive manufacturing is currently unable to produce parts with rounded contours and smooth surface finish. Because parts are built up in discrete layers, there will be a “staircase effect” for curved or sloped profiles. Parts then require further processing if a smooth surface finish is required. Also, depending on the
Thin = less than about one micron (10,000 Angstroms - 1000 nm) Film = layer of material on a substrate.
To improve the method, I would have used a machine to cut the chips to
Throughout its history, Intel has centered its strategy on the tenets of technological leadership and innovation (Burgelman, 1994). Intel established its reputation for taking calculated risks early on in 1969 by pioneering the metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) processing technology. This new process technology enabled Intel to increase the number of circuits while simultaneously being able to reduce the cost-per-bit by tenfold. In 1970, Intel once again led the way with the introduction of the world’s first DRAM. While other companies had designed functioning DRAMs, they had failed to develop a process technology that would allow manufacturing of the devices to be commercially viable. By 1972, unit sales for the 1103, Intel’s original DRAM, had accounted for over 90% of the company’s $23.4 million revenue (Cogan & Burgelman, 2004).
“After the integrated circuits the only place to go was down—in size that it. Large scale integration (LS) could fit hundreds of components onto one chip. By the 1980’s, very large scale integration (VLSI) squeezed hundreds of thousands of components onto a chip. Ultra-Large scale integration (ULSI) increased that number into millions. The ability to fit so much onto an area about half the size of ...
...cing crystalline silicon and vertically integrate their manufacturing process, therefore further weakening the bargaining power of suppliers.
Santa Clara Valley, California, better known as Silicon Valley, is the birthplace and reigning capital of the largest and fastest growing manufacturing industry in the world, microelectronics (Hossfeld 405). Microelectronics is defined as a branch of electronics that deals with the miniaturization of electric circuits and components. This involves computers, processor, cell phones, and many other electronic devices. Cell phones are becoming a part of the microelec...
Silicon surface micromachining uses the same equipment and processes as the electronics semiconductor industry. There are three basic building blocks in this technology, which are the ability to deposit thin films of material on a substrate, to apply a patterned mask on top of the films by photolithographic imaging, and to etch the films selectively to the mask. A MEMS process is usually a structured sequence of these operations to form actual devices.
After the master pieces are created, moulds are created using rubber for each master piece.
A processor is the chip inside a computer which carries out of the functions of the computer at various speeds. There are many processors on the market today. The two most well known companies that make processors are Intel and AMD. Intel produces the Pentium chip, with the most recent version of the Pentium chip being the Pentium 3. Intel also produces the Celeron processor (Intel processors). AMD produces the Athlon processor and the Duron processor (AMD presents).
In modern days, silicon’s primary use is semiconductors in electronics. Nearly all electronics in the world have at least one semiconductor and that semiconductor wouldn’t be possible without silicon. The process of turning raw silicon into a usable resource is still unchanged, like everything, the process has been modernized and quickened with electric ovens and preciously controlled environments.