The major semiconductor fabrication processes presented with Lego® bricks Welcome to the Semiconductor Science Class! Here, we're introducing the semiconductors used in a variety of fields, including computers, smartphones, and cars we use in our daily lives Do you know what a semiconductor is and how it is produced? To help you understand, we've implemented the 8 steps of the semiconductor production process with Lego® bricks The major semiconductor fabrication process consists of 7 Front FAB processes and 1 Package FAB process.
The front FAB process creates wafers and the package FAB process separates wafers into individual chips and makes them into packages/modules/SSDs according to each customer's request, and verifies the operation performance. The first process of semiconductor fabrication is creating round wafers The wafer is the most important material when making semiconductor integrated circuits, made by melting the silicon extracted from sand, poured into a round column called silicon rods, and cutting it into slices by the uniform thickness and flattening the surfaces The second process is oxidation. A uniform silicon oxide film is made, by spraying oxygen or water vapor onto the surface of the wafer. Oxidation is the fundamental step for all processes This oxide film protects the silicon surface from impurities, occurred from pollutants or chemicals produced during the process The third process is the photolithography process The photolithography process requires circuit design and mask fabrication First, apply the photoresist onto the wafer to create photographic paper, Then, you draw circuits onto the wafer by passing light through a mask with circuit patterns The whole process of applying light through the photomask with pre-designed electronic circuit patterns and printing the electronic circuit patterns onto the wafer is called the photolithography process It's similar to printing a picture onto photographic paper The fourth process is the etching process. The word 'etching' might sound unfamiliar to some of you It basically shares the same principle as copper plate painting, which is drawn by corrosion of iron, as you might have experienced in an art class Once a thin film is formed to protect the wafer from corrosion through the photolithography process, the etchant acts as a corrosive solution The removal of unnecessary circuits is called the etching process The fifth process is the thin film and deposition process On etched wafers, multiple circuits are stacked like a building to make semiconductors To make a semiconductor, a circuit structure needs to be built-in stacked layers, and it requires a very thin membrane that separates and protects each circuit. It is called a Thin Film Then, follows the process of applying molecular- and atomic-unit substances on thin-filmed wafers, which is called the deposition process The sixth process is the metal wiring process The metal wiring process represents connecting metal wires, known as ‘electric roads’ through the circuit patterns of semiconductors, utilizing the characteristics of metals that conduct electricity well The seventh process is the electrical test process This step is to sort out the good and defective products by checking the electrical operation of each chip In particular, EDS Test stands for 'electrical die sorting' and begins by checking whether the chips have reached the desired quality level based on an electrical characteristic test Afterward, it is determined if a specific chip will be a good product or a repairable chip, which can be mended into a good product The non-repairable chips are classified as defective with particular marks and separated to be no longer continued to the next process The final step of the 8 semiconductor processes is the packaging process Because semiconductor chips are installed in the required position as parts of an integrated circuit (IC) board or components of an electronic device, they require electrical packaging processes that are suitable for each device before being equipped
