The Relationship Between Wafer and Chip

Chips, also known as microcircuits, are the general term for semiconductor device. Which means the silicon chips containing integrated circuits with small size, and they are part of computers or other electronic devices. Wafer refers to the silicon wafer that be used in the production of silicon semiconductor integrated circuits. Because of the circular shape, it is called a wafer. The silicon wafer is processed to form a wafer, and then packaged to form a chip.

The process steps of making wafers into chips

Including Apple A12 and Huawei Kirin 980, no matter how sophisticated the chip manufacturing is, Its manufacturing methods can be summarized into four basic processes, namely "patterning process", "thin film process", "doping process" and "heat treatment process."

a. Patterning process of chip production process

The patterning process is a series of processing techniques for creating patterns in the wafer and on the surface layer. Combined with the above statement about device design, the patterning process is essentially "pitting" (carving) on the "foundation" (wafer) and the process of delineating "occupancy" (size and location) for various "buildings" (devices). Since this process determines the key to the device-the size (that is, the xx nano chip we often say), it has become the most critical process for chip manufacturing. The key word for the patterning process is "carving by picture". The masks and photolithography that we often hear belong to this basic process category as well.

b. Thin film process of chip production process

The core content of this craft is to add layers, and this process is not difficult to understand. Chip manufacturing itself is a "building", so when a piece of land is delineated, building a building is definitely more cost-effective than building a bungalow, and the function of "building" is also stronger. Just like a building can use different floors to achieve different functional partitions and expand the use of space, thin film technology can add layers to the "building" of the chip and provide films for conduction, isolation, and further patterning for each layer. The key word for thin-film technology is "add-on-demand layers." Processes such as deposition, sputtering, CVD/PCD, and electroplating that we often see are all belong to this category.

c. The doping process of the chip production process

For a building, in the process of delineating land and constructing houses, various supporting pipelines, installation of water, electricity control equipment and various functional equipment are required to realize the corresponding functions. In integrated circuits, we rely on various devices. These devices cannot be realized only by "reinforced concrete" (wafers and films), but some "control units" need to be built into them. And this is the doping process, which forms a P-N junction by creating a region rich in electrons (N charge carriers) or electron holes (P charge carriers) in the surface of the wafer. The process of adding control equipment (doping materials) in (chip) to realize the complete function of the building, the key word is "control". Processes such as ion implantation, thermal diffusion, and solid-state diffusion fall into this category.

d. Heat treatment process of chip production process

In the process of building a house,  processes of drying, cooling, and drying various materials will always be needed after they are added. The core purpose of these processes is to stabilize these materials as soon as possible, such as drying various glues to make them adhere. Then things will not fall during subsequent use. This type of process essentially heats or cools the material to achieve a specific result, which is called a heat treatment process in wafer manufacturing, and the key word is "stable."