Semiconductors The Silicon Chip

Semiconductors : The Silicon Chip Silicon is the raw material most often used in integrated circuit (IC) fabrication. It is the second most abundant substance on the earth. It is extracted from rocks and common beach sand and put through an exhaustive purification process. In this form, silicon is the purist industrial substance that man produces, with impurities comprising less than one part in a billion. That is the equivalent of one tennis ball in a …

…is deposited over the entire surface. The metal dips down into the circuit contact areas, touching the silicon. Most of the surface metal is then etched away, leaving an interconnection pattern between the circuit elements. The final layer is "vapox", or vapour-deposited-oxide, a glass-like material that protects the IC from contamination and damage. It, too, is etched away, but only above the "bonding pads", the square aluminum areas to which wires will later be attached.