AMAZING PICS: How a chip is made

Nato (New user):

That was a cool article, enjoyed the read, thanks apc and intel

Gavin WA (New user):

very cool!

Raindog (New user):

Scientists at Leeds University are working on an alternative process

Michael J (User):

extemeley cool!

todd_h86 (New user):

Awesome article APC! Now maybe partner with Kingston to make one on RAM and maybe Seagate for HDD manufacture or Nvidia for Video cards? Maybe do an article a month on the processes involved in creating the computing components?

The Big Baboo (New user):

Ah joy O happiness :) Silicon is one of my favourite minerals you know.
Apart from the outstanding work it did with "breast implants" I used to work in a glass factory for many years :) Memories memories :)

lfspezi (New user):

Waw! Realy great topic. Congratultions.

Felipe

Incremental (New user):

Congratulations on getting the name of magenta right. That puts you in the top 0.02% of English speakers.

Unfortunately, the “step-by-step” description seems to miss a few steps. The following is one instance.

At the end of page 4, there are suddenly the following changes. • Some of the remaining material remains grey, and some is now coded green. • The part that has been etched away is filled with something coded magenta. • A thin layer of something coded yellow, and a layer of something coded cyan — both with the same new shape — have been added. • Another layer of photo resist, with another new shape, is added. • A further layer of photo resist, with a further new shape, is added.

Inferring from the account so far, this looks like about 12 steps.

According to the text, what is represented here is the addition of a new layer of photo resist mask. On the one hand, that would at least explain one of the two layers of blue. On the other hand, the next step (we will be told) involves bombarding the object with small particles moving at fantastic speeds. In the previous steps, the “photo resist” layer resisted chemical etching [as opposed to resisting light]. It seems to me to be unlikely (but not completely implausible) that the same material would be used to resist physical bombardment.

One might suspect that it was simply a picture (not to mention the text) misplaced, except that the object is the same in the next (described) step.

I suggest that the ion bombardment step involves bombarding the object with things that *actually are* ions, that these are not intrinsically impure, and that they are not impurities in the silicon any more than the carbon in steel is an impurity.

It seems, from the description in the next step, that the coding green represented what was to have ions implanted in it… except that some of the green is protected (not only by the “photo resist” but also by the materials coded yellow and cyan).

Thankfully, the following step (“Removing Photo Resist”) indicates that there was only one layer of photo resist.

The description of the following step — “Ready Transistor” — reveals that magenta represents insulation. Another layer of this has been added, and holes cut in it, without any explicating steps. Closer inspection reveals that there is also a layer of dark(er) magenta, which appears to be quite superfluous — given the inference that it is some sort of insulation.

The diagram labelled “Electroplating” shows — as I take it — a representation of the object being electroplated, and also an image of the process at the scale that shows the whole wafer. From this, I infer that the blue wave effect represents this duality of scale… albeit without the usual device of showing, in the outer image, the portion shown in the scaled-up image. Conversely to this, the electrical flow out of the wafer is shown as feeding into the (scaled-up) object. [Intel should investigate this as a potential source of perpetual energy.]


According to your introduction, Intel is the source of this “step-by-step” diagramming. Nice one, Intel. Perhaps you could employ the genius who made these images somewhere in the chip-making process — maybe the part where the yellow stuff magically appears… or where a photo-resistant layer survives bombardment with high-speed particles… or where the invisible elves transfer the ions to just where they should be, regardless of what the Intel engineers do.

Nice transparency effects, though. As they say: “Ooohhh, shiny!”.