‘Semiconductor Manufacturing Process’ Explained | 'All About Semiconductor' by Samsung Semiconductor

In this video we help you understand the

semiconductor

industry that is interconnected and constantly evolving in today's huge

semiconductor

ecosystem. Let's learn about the essential semiconductor

manufacturing

process

es. In the first episode we talked about silicon, the main material used to make semiconductors. Silicon to become a semiconductor chip needs to go through the essential wafer fabrication

process

es oxidation photolithography etching ion deposition and deployment metal wiring EDS and packaging let's take a closer look at these processes semiconductors are stacked tall and solid to form a structure complex similar to a high-rise building construction of a building begins with the foundation a wafer is the base of the semiconductor most wafers are made of silicon extracted from sand how can these small grains of sand become a wafer first Is sand heated until it melts at a high temperature?

Purity liquid and then solidified by crystallization. The resulting silicon rod is called an ingot. These ingots are cut into a disc. Thinly sliced ​​wafers. The surface of the wafer slice is rough and contains defects, so polishing machines are used to polish the surface of the wafer. is that surface defects could negatively affect the accuracy of the circuits. If you look at a photo of wafers, you can see a grid pattern on the surface. Yes, the word wafer comes from cookie. Wafers, a wafer made in this way is the main material for semiconductors because the larger the diameter, the greater the number of chips that can be produced per wafer, so the diameter of the wafers becomes larger because the wafer The resulting thin disc-shaped wafer is not conductive, but a process is first required to make the wafers semiconducting.

Through the oxidation process, oxygen or water vapor is sprayed onto the surface of the wafer to form a uniform oxide film. This oxide film protects the wafer surface during subsequent processes and also blocks current leakage between the circuits. The film acts as a strong protective shield now it is the base. ready, the construction process starts right when you draw plans to construct a building, you draw a circuit design on a wafer, which is called photolithography process, it is called photo for short because it is similar to developing a photograph taken with a camera. film with semiconductors.

A photomask works like a film A photomask is a glass substrate with a computer-designed circuit pattern to draw the circuit on the wafer The photoresist applies a light-responsive material thinly and uniformly over the previously placed oxide film on the wafer now, when the light transfers the photographic mask of the pattern, the circuit is drawn on the surface of the wafer, just like developing a photograph, a circuit pattern is printed on the wafer by spraying developer and removing the unsightly areas. illuminated areas that are exposed to light after an inspection of the wafer. To check if the pattern is drawn correctly, go to the next step.

Unnecessary materials are now removed so that only the design pattern remains using liquid or gaseous etching. Unnecessary materials are selectively removed to draw the desired design when using chemical solutions for etching is called wet etching and when using gas or plasma it is called dry etching. We will talk about these details in the future. Imagine building a building on a semiconductor chip smaller than a fingernail and thinner than a sheet of paper. Photolithography. The process and etching process are repeated several times on the wafer layer by layer. An insulating film is required here to separate and protect the stacked circuits.

It is called thin film. Coat thin film at a desired molecular or atomic level onto a wafer. Deposition, since the coating is so thin, precise and sophisticated technology is required to uniformly apply the thin film onto a wafer to give the semiconductor electrical characteristics. Ion implementation is also required. A semiconductor made of silicon does not conduct electricity, but by adding impurities it conducts current and has conductive properties in short through wafer

manufacturing

, oxidation, photolithography, etching, deposition and ion deployment processes, the wafer becomes conductive and Numerous circuits are drawn on it now for this circuit to work, an electrical signal must be applied, a path for electricity needs to be created. to pass according to the circuit pattern, this process is called metal wiring process, it is a process that allows electricity to flow by depositing a thin metal film using materials such as aluminum, titanium or tungsten so that electricity can pass through the semiconductor and chip.

Manufacturing processes are now reaching completion. The next step is EDS. This is the testing process to ensure that the semiconductor chips are flawless. In other words, it is a testing step to classify defective chips. Performance is a percentage of the main chips relative to the maximum number of chips. a single wafer, the semiconductor chip selected through the Eds process is manufactured into a form suitable for devices, this is the last process, the packaging process, the wafer completed through the above steps is cut into individual semiconductor chips which are can be loaded into an electronic device, an individual The chip must have a path to exchange electrical signals with the outside and have a shape that protects it from various external elements.

The wafer is cut into individual chips and the diced or sawn chips are placed on the PCB board in the bonding step. The contact point of the semiconductor chip placed on a substrate connects with the contact point of the substrate, then the molding finishes the chip package with its desired shape after sealing the semiconductor and labeling the product name. The semiconductor chip we commonly see is completed, of course, only after going through the final test, will it become a finished product abroad? We learned about the essential processes that produce semiconductor chips. These complex processes can be separated into the pre-process to the wafer processing stage and the post-process containing the testing and packaging processes.

We hope that you now have a better understanding of how a semiconductor chip is manufactured. Stay tuned for more interesting episodes on semiconductors. If you liked today's video, please subscribe and turn on notifications.