IC Fabrication Process

Course : VLSI Design

Akramul Haque Arman

Department of EEE
Id:555122003

Hamdard University Bangladesh

Content

Introduction
Steps for IC fabrication and Description
IC Design Rules
Discussion

An Integrated Circuit (IC) is also called as chip

or microchip.
IC is very small in size.
IC is the principal component in all electronic
devices.
IC can function as amplifier, oscillator, timer,
counter, computer memory

Steps for IC fabrication

Wafer production
Masking
Etching
Doping
Atomic diffusion
Ion implantation
Metallization

Wafer production

round slice of semiconductor material

base or substrate for entire chip.
thickness about .01 to .025inches
smoothening by polishing
wafers are cleaned using high purity low
particle chemicals
exposed to ultra pure oxygen

Masking

Photolithography
photoresist film is applied on the wafer
aligned to a mask using photo aligner
exposed to ultraviolet light through mask

Etching
Etching removes material from wafer surface where
resist has been removed
isotropic etching works at same rate in all directions
of material
anisotropic etching works faster in one direction than
the other
wet etching uses liquid solvents to remove materials
dry etching uses gas to remove materials
Finally, remaining photoresist is removed

Doping
To alter the electrical character of silicon, atom
with one less electron than silicon such as boron
and atom with one electron greater then silicon
such as phosphorous are introduced into the
area. The P-type (boron) and N-type
(phosphorous) are created to reflect their
conducting characteristics. Diffusion is defined
as the movement of impurity atoms in
semiconductor material at high temperature.

Atomic diffusion
p and n regions are created by adding dopants
into the wafer. The wafers are placed in an oven
which is made up of quartz and it is surrounded
with heating elements. Then the wafers are
heated at a temperature of about 1500-2200F.
The inert gas carries the dopant chemical. The
dopant and gas is passed through the wafers and
finally the dopant will get deposited on the wafer.
This method can only be used for large areas.

Ion implantation
Dopant gas such as phosphine or boron
trichloride will be ionized first. Then it provides
a beam of high energy dopant ions to the
specified regions of wafer. It will penetrate the
wafer.

Metallization
It is used to create contact with silicon and to
make interconnections on chip. A thin layer of
aluminum is deposited over the whole wafer.

IC Design Rules
Want design of IC to be independent of process used
to implement design
especially want to scale as process technologies
improve
Place constraints on widths, separations, overlaps
base all measures on elementary distance unit l
each process defines a value for l in microns
pattern generator produces output files
appropriately
Current processes have l = 0.18 - 0.25 microns

In a monolithic IC, all the circuit components are fabricated into

or top of a block of silicon which is referred to as chip or die.
Metallization patterns are required to make interconnections
between the components present inside the chip. It must also be
noted that the individual components will not be separable from
the circuit.

Thank you