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Creating Computer Chips

Creating Computer Chips. Integrated Circuits. What is an IC?. In the 1950s computers were built with vacuum tubes A vacuum tube is A single switch Produced a lot of heat Used a lot of power Burned out frequently. What is an IC?.

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Creating Computer Chips

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  1. Creating Computer Chips Integrated Circuits

  2. What is an IC? • In the 1950s computers were built with vacuum tubes • A vacuum tube is • A single switch • Produced a lot of heat • Used a lot of power • Burned out frequently

  3. What is an IC? • By the mid 1950s vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors. • A transistor • is a single switch • uses low power • gives off little heat • is reliable

  4. What is an IC? Jack Kilby, working at Texas Instruments, In 1959 two engineers independently invented ways to put transistorized switches onto a wafer of silicon. Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor

  5. What is an IC? An Integrated Circuit is • hundreds to thousands of switches (transistors)on a single silicon chip • low power • inexpensive • reliable More powerful computers are possible with ICs

  6. How are ICs Made? Design • It takes a team of up to 600 engineers. • The engineers face a task equivalent to trying to design a small city from the ground up.

  7. How are ICs Made? Manufacture • Computer chips begin as a material called silicon. • Silicon is an element like oxygen or carbon

  8. How are ICs Made? Manufacture • The silicon is crafted into thin, large "wafer-like" sheets. (wafers) • The transistors and other components are applied in layers

  9. How are ICs Made? Manufacture • A single wafer may contain hundreds or even thousands of individual ICs • Each IC is removed from the wafer and placed in a package that we know as a computer chip

  10. Creating ICs—Vocabulary

  11. Bunny Suit • Special clothing worn by workers in a clean room that helps to keep human contaminants away from the chips.

  12. Clean Room • The area of the fabrication plant where the chips are made that is kept extremely clean of dust, dirt and other contamination.

  13. Contamination • Intrusion or contact with dirt, dust or impurities that adversely affect chip fabrication.

  14. Etching • The process of immersing the wafer in a chemical bath—usually an acid or solvent—that removes the photoresist that was exposed to light.

  15. Fab • The fabrication plant that houses the entire business of manufacturing computer chips. Fabrication • The process of manufacturing computer chips.

  16. Mask • A patterned plate or template used to expose selected areas of a wafer to light in the process of fabrication a computer chip.

  17. Micron • A unit of measure that is one millionth of a meter; synonymous with micrometer.

  18. Photoresist • A light-sensitive material that changes chemically when light shines on to it.

  19. Quality Control • The stage of testing chips for defects. The smallest mistake, such as a slight misalignment of the mask, can destroy some or all of the chips on a wafer.

  20. Micron • A unit of measure that is one millionth of a meter; synonymous with micrometer.

  21. Semiconductor • A substance, like silicon, with electrical conductivity between that of an insulator and a conductor: Most electronic circuits are made with semiconductor components.

  22. Wafer • A very thin slice of very pure silicon crystal (99.9999% pure)

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