What does an integrated circuit manufacturer do?

Integrated circuits manufacturers produce semiconductor electronic circuits, which are small electronic components of solid states used in mobile phones, televisions and many other electronic devices. The device in solid state has no movable parts and are made of silicon -based chips that provide computational and electrical processing. In the mid -20th century, vacuum tubes and early mechanical computer switches replaced the semiconductors, allowing the equipment to become very small, yet contains a large amount of computing power. The integrated circuits manufacturers build clean rooms that use a very high level of air filtration to remove dust and other contaminants that can destroy the circuit. Employees wear covers that prevent dust, skin or hair from entering the process and remove and replace these covers if they have to leave and re -enter the levies.

The first step in the production of integrated circuits is to create silicon plateslived as a perimeter base. The integrated manufacturer of circuits or an external supplier cleans the natural sand silk and removes any dirt to form a cylinder -shaped crystal. The cylinder is then cut into thin plates that can be several centimeters or centimeters across. These wafers are chemically cleaned and then one side is polished on a mirror similar to the surface that will be the base of the integrated circuit.

polished plates are then exposed to pure oxygen in a process that creates a very thin layer of silicon oxide. Oxygen reacts with pure silicon on a wafer, which consumes a small amount of silicon on the wafer surface. The resulting Christianity oxide is molecularly bound to pure silicon below it and will not be removed later with the exception of chemicals.

Another steps used by the integrated circuit manufacturer are the repeated process of camouflage, exposureLights, etching and cleaning. The integrated circuit is an electronic circuit created by thin layers of electrically conductive material separated by layers of non -conductors. Masking places a template or design of the first layer of the perimeter on silicon wafers.

First, a material called a photoresist is placed on the wafer surface, with a mask over it. The photoresist is exposed to light, causing a chemical healing reaction of any exposed material. When the mask is removed, an unruly photoresist can be removed in a process called etching.

The integrated circuit manufacturer repeats these steps and adds layers of conductor or non -conductors to the waference for creating electronic circuits. Many small integrated circuits are made on a wafer at the same time and as soon as the circuits are completed, they are cut off in later steps. The last steps are added electrical connection to individual circuits to be placed on plates of circuits used in computers and other electronic devices.