from sand to silicon

• 1- polycrystalline silicon
• 2-single crystal silicon
• 3-silicing crystal into wafer
• 4-making a patterned oxide layer
• 5-MOSFET DESIGN
• 6-Adding gate to complete MOSFET
• 7-connecting MOSFET to copper tracks
• 8- completing the circuit
• 9-sorting good chips from bad
• Poly Si manufacture
• To get EGS, the starting material is called Metallurgical grade Si (MGS). The first step is the
synthesis of MGS from the ore.
• The starting material for Si manufacture is quartzite (SiO2) or sand. The ore is reduced to Si
by mixing with coke and heating in a submerged elec-trode arc furnace. The SiO2 reacts with
excess C to first form SiC. At high temperature, the SiC reduces SiO2 to form Si. The overall
reaction is given by
• Single crystal Si manufacture
• There are two main techniques for converting polycrystalline EGS into a single crystal ingot,
which are used to obtain the final wafers.
• 1. Czochralski technique (CZ) - this is the dominant technique for manufacturing single
crystals. It is especially suited for the large wafers that are currently used in IC fabrication.
• 2. Float zone technique - this is mainly used for small sized wafers. The oat zone technique is
used for producing specialty wafers that have low oxygen impurity concentration.
• 3.1 Czochralski crystal growth technique
• A schematic of this growth process is shown in figure 4. The various components of the
process are
1. Furnace
2. Crystal pulling mechanism
3. Ambient control - atmosphere
4. Control system
• The starting material for the CZ process is electronic grade silicon, which is melted in the
furnace. To minimize contamination, the crucible is made of SiO 2 or SiNx. The drawback is
that at the high temperature the inner liner of the crucible also starts melting and has to
replaced periodically. The
Figure 4: Schematic of the Czochralski growth technique. The polycrystalline silicon is melted and a single
crystal seed is then used to nucleate a single crystal ingot. The seed crystal controls the orientation of the single
crystal. Adapted from Microchip fabrication - Peter van Zant.
• furnace is heated above 1500 C, since Si melting point is 1412 C. A small seed
crystal, with the desired orientation of the final wafer, is dipped in the molten Si and
slowly withdrawn by the crystal pulling mechanism. The seed crystal is also rotated
while it is being pulled, to ensure uniformity across the surface. The furnace is
rotated in the direction opposite to the crystal puller. The molten Si sticks to the
seed crystal and starts to solidify with the same orientation as the seed crystal is
withdrawn. Thus, a single crystal ingot is obtained. To create doped crystals, the
dopant material is added to the Si melt so that it can be incorporated in the growing
crystal. The process control, i.e. speed of withdrawal and the speed of rotation of
the crystal puller, is crucibal to obtain a good quality single crystal. There is a
feedback system that control this process. Similarly there is another ambient gas
control system. The final solidified Si obtained is the single crystal ingot. A 450 mm
wafer ingot can be as heavy as 800 kg. A picture of a such an ingot is show in figure
5.
• 3.2 Float zone technique
• The float zone technique is suited for small wafer production, with low oxygen
impurity. The schematic of the process is shown in figure 6. A polycrystalline EGS
rod is fused with the single crystal seed of desired orientation. This is taken in an
inert gas furnace and then melted along the length of the rod by a traveling radio
frequency (RF) coil. The RF coil starts from the fused region, containing the seed,
and travels up, as shown in figure 6. When the molten region solidifies, it has the
same orientation as the seed. The furnace is filled with an inert gas like argon to
reduce gaseous impurities.
• Also, since no crucible is needed it can be used to produce oxygen 'free' Si wafers.
The difficulty is to extend this technique for large wafers, since the process
produces large number of dislocations. It is used for small specialty applications
requiring low oxygen content wafers.
• The MOSFET
• (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) transistor is a semiconductor device
which is widely used for switching and amplifying electronic signals in the electronic
devices.  The MOSFET is a core of integrated circuit and it can be designed and fabricated
in a single chip because of these very small sizes.  The MOSFET is a four terminal device
with source(S), gate (G), drain (D) and body (B) terminals. The body of the MOSFET is
frequently connected to the source terminal so making it a three terminal device like field
effect transistor. The MOSFET is very far the most common transistor and can be used in
both analog and digital circuits.

• The MOSFET works by electronically varying the width of a channel along which charge
carriers flow (electrons or holes).  The charge carriers enter the channel at source and exit
via the drain. The width of the channel is controlled by the voltage on an electrode is called
gate which is located between source and drain. It is insulated from the channel near an
extremely thin layer of metal oxide. The MOS capacity present in the device is the main
part