There are roughly ten semiconductor equipments required to make a silicon wafer, they are single crystal furnace, vapor phase epitaxy furnace, oxidation furnace, magnetron sputtering table, chemical mechanical polishing machine, lithography machine, ion implanter, wire bond machine, wafer dicing machine, wafer thinning machine.
1. Single crystal furnace
A single crystal furnace is a device that uses a graphite heater to melt polycrystalline materials such as polycrystalline silicon in an environment of inert gas (mainly nitrogen and helium), and grow dislocation-free single crystal silicon by the Czochralski method. In the actual production of single crystal silicon, it plays a key role in controlling the temperature and quality of silicon crystals.
Since the diameter of a single crystal can be affected by factors such as temperature, pulling speed and rotation speed, crucible tracking speed, and protective gas flow rate during the growth process, the production temperature mainly determines whether it can be crystallized, and the speed will directly affect the internal quality of the crystal. , and this effect can only be known by testing after the single crystal is pulled out. The main control aspects of the single crystal furnace include crystal diameter, silicon power control, leakage rate and argon gas quality.
2. Vapor phase epitaxy furnace
The vapor phase epitaxy furnace mainly provides a specific process environment for the vapor phase epitaxy growth of silicon, and realizes the growth of a thin layer crystal corresponding to the single crystal phase on a single crystal. Epitaxial growth refers to the growth of a single crystal layer with certain requirements and the same crystal orientation as the substrate on a single crystal substrate (substrate), as if the original crystal extends outward for a section, in order to manufacture high-frequency high-power devices. , it is necessary to reduce the series resistance of the collector, and the material is required to withstand high voltage and large current, so a thin high-resistance epitaxial layer needs to be grown on a low-resistance substrate.
The vapor phase epitaxy furnace can make the basic preparation for the functionalization of the single crystal deposition bottom. Vapor phase epitaxy is a special process of chemical vapor deposition. The crystal structure of the thin layer is the continuation of the single crystal substrate, and it is related to the crystal orientation of the substrate. maintain the corresponding relationship.
3. Oxidation furnace
Silicon reacts chemically with gases containing oxidizing substances, such as water vapor and oxygen, at high temperature to produce a dense silicon dioxide film on the surface of the silicon wafer, which is an important process in silicon planar technology. The main function of the oxidation furnace is to oxidize semiconductor materials such as silicon, provide the required oxidation atmosphere, and realize the oxidation treatment process of the expected design of the semiconductor, which is an indispensable part of the semiconductor processing process.
4. Magnetron Sputtering Station
Magnetron sputtering is a type of physical vapor deposition. The general sputtering method can be used to prepare materials such as semiconductors, and has the advantages of simple equipment, easy control, large coating area and strong adhesion. In the process of silicon wafer production, a closed magnetic field parallel to the target surface in diode sputtering and an orthogonal electromagnetic field formed on the target surface bind the secondary electrons to a specific area of the target surface to achieve high ion density and high ion density. The ionization of energy, the high-speed sputter deposition of target atoms or molecules on the substrate to form a thin film.
5. Chemical mechanical polishing machine
A machine for chemical mechanical polishing. In the manufacture of silicon wafers, with the upgrading of process technology and the reduction of wire and gate size, lithography technology has higher and higher requirements on the flatness of the wafer surface. IBM In 1985, the development of CMOS products was introduced, and it was successfully applied to 64MB DRAM production in 1990. After 1995, CMP technology has developed rapidly and is widely used in the semiconductor industry.
Chemical mechanical polishing is also known as chemical mechanical polishing. Its principle is a processing technology that combines chemical corrosion and mechanical removal. It is the only technology in mechanical processing that can achieve global flattening of the surface. In actual manufacturing, its main function is to grind and polish the body to be ground (semiconductor) through the combined effect of mechanical grinding and chemical liquid dissolution "corrosion".
6. Lithography machine
Also known as mask alignment exposure machine, exposure system, lithography system, etc., the commonly used lithography machine is mask alignment lithography, and the general lithography process needs to go through the surface cleaning and drying of silicon wafers, primer coating, and spin coating. Resist, soft bake, alignment exposure, post bake, development, hard bake, etching and other processes. The process of applying glue on the surface of the silicon wafer, and then transferring the pattern on the reticle to the photoresist to temporarily "copy" the device or circuit structure to the silicon wafer.
7. Ion implanter
It is one of the high-pressure small accelerators with the largest number of applications. It obtains the required ions from the ion source, and obtains the ion beam current of hundreds of kiloelectron volts through acceleration. It is used for ion implantation of semiconductor materials, large-scale integrated circuits and devices, and is also used for surface modification and fabrication of metal materials. film etc.
In the silicon production process, it is necessary to use an ion implanter to dope the area near the semiconductor surface. The ion implanter is the key equipment in the pre-fabrication process of integrated circuits. The ion implantation is the technical purpose of doping the area near the semiconductor surface. It is to change the carrier concentration and conductivity type of the semiconductor. Compared with the conventional thermal doping process, the ion implantation can precisely control the implantation dose angle and depth, which overcomes the limitation of the conventional process and reduces the cost and power consumption.
8. Wire bonding machine
Its main function is to connect the Pad on the semiconductor chip and the Pad on the pin with conductive metal wires (gold wires). Wire bonding is a kind of use of thin metal wires, which uses heat, pressure and ultrasonic energy to tightly bond the metal wires to the substrate pads, so as to realize the electrical interconnection between the chip and the substrate and the information exchange between the chips. Under ideally controlled conditions, electron sharing or atomic interdiffusion occurs between the lead and the substrate, thereby enabling atomic-scale bonding between the two metals.
9. Wafer dicing machine
Because when manufacturing silicon wafers, it is often a large wafer, which needs to be diced and processed. At this time, the value of the wafer dicing machine is reflected. The reason why wafers need to be resized is to make more complex integrated circuits.
10. Wafer thinning machine
In the manufacture of silicon wafers, high requirements are placed on the dimensional accuracy, geometric accuracy, surface cleanliness and surface microlattice structure of the wafer. Therefore, in hundreds of processes, thinner wafers cannot be used, and only certain Thick wafers are transferred and tape-out during the process. Wafer thinning is the reduction of the size of the wafer body in the production of integrated circuits in order to produce more complex integrated circuits. Before the integrated circuit is packaged, it is necessary to remove a certain thickness of the excess substrate material on the back of the wafer. The equipment required for this process is a wafer thinning machine.
Of course, in the actual production process, silicon wafer manufacturing requires far more equipment than those listed above. So the above is all the content I want to share with you today. If you have any questions, please leave a message to us~
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