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AnandTech's Intro To Semiconductor Tech

Posted by Soulskill on from the absolutely-fab dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Computer hardware site AnandTech has posted a detailed introduction to semiconductor technology. It's deep enough to be insightful for understanding the chips that run your devices and the industry that built them, but also short enough that your eyes won't start bleeding in the process. The article starts by explaining why silicon is so important, and how a board is set up, structurally. Then it walks through transistor design and construction, and the underpinnings of CMOS logic. Finally, the article describes the manufacturing steps, including wafer creation, photolithography, and how metal is added/shaped at the end. They then go into the physics behind improving these components. It's a geeky and informative read.

21 comments

  1. Related: Indistingishable From Magic by Unknown+Lamer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Back at HOPE9, there was a really awesome presentation on semiconductor manufacturing. It's worth the entire 90 minutes and IMHO was the best part of the conference. I've ended up showing the video of it to a few folks now, and it never becomes less awesome.

    --

    HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
    1. Re:Related: Indistingishable From Magic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, this video really needs to be watched and understood especially by people with unrealistic expectations from 3D printing.

      Look at what we are building NOW and tell me how you think we'll be doing this at home???

      Insanity.

    2. Re:Related: Indistingishable From Magic by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      But they did it in Star Trek: The Next Generation!

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    3. Re:Related: Indistingishable From Magic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sigh. A depressing number of so-called scientific geeks think that way. And they don't realize it's the religious way of thinking!

    4. Re:Related: Indistingishable From Magic by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      This video of a nuclear reactor needs to be watched and understood by those who think their Sinclair ZX80 could really control a nuclear reactor. Look at the computing complexity of what we're using NOW, and tell me how you think we'll be doing this with a microprocessor???

  2. Britney Spears guide to semicondoctor physics by rjforster · · Score: 1

    It may be old but this is pretty good.
    http://britneyspears.ac/lasers...

    1. Re:Britney Spears guide to semicondoctor physics by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      And then there's Barbie explains finite state machines, from the old Forum 2000.

  3. Best Summary Ever... by dnebin · · Score: 1

    tl;dr

  4. Wrong site... by wbr1 · · Score: 2

    This site is only interested in deadlocked AGW arguments, political infighting, and tinfoil hattery. Please do not misunderstand, I am not complaining about that. These things have their place. However, real technical discussion is unappreciated here.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
    1. Re:Wrong site... by werepants · · Score: 2

      Maybe so... this kind of article won't generate much commentary most likely, but it is stuff like this that keeps me at slashdot. It would be interesting to know what the article view numbers are. I can't imagine that people in massive flamewars in the comments section are a high-value ad target, so I question whether posting that stuff is really all that lucrative.

    2. Re:Wrong site... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This site is only interested in deadlocked AGW arguments, political infighting, and tinfoil hattery.

      Makes you long for hot grits, doesn't it?

  5. wow very good article by crgrace · · Score: 2

    I'm a professional in the business and I was really happy to see that they seem to have gotten everything right! I was prepared to roll my eyes when they showed a cross-section of a bipolar transistor (which they didn't) and their treatment of BEOL processing was outstanding.

    Bravo!

    1. Re:wow very good article by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I'm a professional in the business and I was really happy to see that they seem to have gotten everything right! I was prepared to roll my eyes when they showed a cross-section of a bipolar transistor (which they didn't) and their treatment of BEOL processing was outstanding.

      Given it was AnandTech, it was expected to be of high quality and well-researched.

      While AnandTech is primarily a PC oriented enthusiast website, Anand Lal Shimpi (when he was there) ensured that the content there would be extremely well researched and accurate. The speciality of the site is internals. Want to know how an SSD works? Try any other site. Want to know how the SSD controller works with details on the FTL and how TLC memory works in detail? Anand will tell you.

      Not every tech website decided to go with flashy over actual technical content.

  6. no love for power MOSFETs by phaserbanks · · Score: 1

    For all the detail in this article, it would be nice to see some mention of power transistors. Advances in power devices necessarily go hand in hand with advances in CMOS, but it's a field that's often overlooked. Maybe chapter two?

  7. A Harder Read than Advertised by mythosaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From the second paragraph, emphasis mine.

    Silicon is incredibly important as a material in the industry because it’s a semiconductor. Of course, the name is self-explanatory, but there’s more to it. The key here is the band structure. Band structure refers to the “bands” of energy levels that form due to the sheer number of orbital states that can be occupied in molecules. Those that understand how electron orbitals work will point out that each energy level is discrete, but due to the sheer number of orbital configurations, a seemingly continuous distribution of energy can be seen.

    Ah yes, completely self explanatory, and yes, we all remember our electron orbitals.

    1. Re:A Harder Read than Advertised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was around when they started discussing band structure at the university that I decided to stop doing EE and switched to CE.

    2. Re:A Harder Read than Advertised by preaction · · Score: 1

      This may be an excellent article, but it is very poorly written. If only there were people whose job it was to read things and then ... change... them so they were better... Like... a changer? Is that a thing?

    3. Re:A Harder Read than Advertised by preaction · · Score: 1

      Every time I've heard someone say something was "self-explanatory" or "self-evident" or "obvious", it was always anything but...

    4. Re:A Harder Read than Advertised by gnupun · · Score: 1

      But it is self-explanatory: semi means partial (compared to copper/other metals that fully conduct electricity and insulators don't conduct any), and conductor means well, conductor of electricity. Semiconductors can either be conductors or insulators depending on many factors.

    5. Re:A Harder Read than Advertised by mythosaz · · Score: 1

      When someone writes "Of course, the name is self-explanatory" they're either wasting ink on paper (because it is self-explanatory), or they're smugly saying you're an idiot for not knowing why it's so goddamned obvious.

    6. Re:A Harder Read than Advertised by werepants · · Score: 1

      I suppose it isn't really an "intro" then, but you always have to presume some level of knowledge in your audience - do they understand what processors are? Computers? Electrons? You can't cover everything.

      Semiconductors are really where materials science meets electronics. Understanding whether something is a conductor or an insulator is 7th grade science - it does seem self-explanatory to me that a semiconductor is something that is "partially" conductive. As far as electron orbitals, that's where the material science is, and I don't think there's any good way to get around the fact that some basic chemistry knowledge is super helpful here. Including the chemistry topics can be confusing for some, but can really bring together some big-picture concepts for people that are familiar with it.

      From reading the article, I'm happy he presented the band-gap paradigm, because that is new to me and interesting, but I think there's an easier way to think about it. Conductivity is about having electrons that are free to move around. Silicon is important here because it is situated in the middle of its row on the periodic table - Na, Mg, Al to the left, P, S, Cl, Ar to the right. Basically, elements on the far left want to give away an electron to form a strong bond, elements on the right (excluding the nobles) want to take an electron to form a strong bond, and silicon finds itself in a region where it could as easily give an electron as take one, and it isn't likely to form those strong bonds based on electron trades. This means that it is possible to vary the conductivity of it via electric fields and chemistry, and get some electrons to jump around the way you want them to.

      Anyhow, it sounds like this is an intro to semiconductors, with the presumption that the reader has a background in a science or engineering-related field. If you want a good intro all around, Electronics for Earthlings by Amdahl is actually a pretty fun (if a little bit frenetic) intro that provides some really useful analogies.