Sunday 26 January 2014

Silicon Wafer Fabrication - Some Services You Can Avail

By Roy van Rivero


A silicon wafer fabrication service that a thin film company provides usually includes an array of services to its clients; in other words, a one-stop-shop for those that need wafer production service. This provides an advantage to many companies that use wafers as a raw material for manufacturing as this help them to reduce the production costs. But what are these so-called 'array of services'? Below are some examples of services you can get from a wafer fabrication service provider:

Lithography - in semiconductor industry, it is called photolithography; this is a technique that put patterns on the surface of a substrate, where patterns are done using a light sensitive polymer called photoresist. Lithography services usually include engineering support for mask layout and, of course, the process development.

Wet etching - this is a process is utilized to chemically remove layers from a substrate's surface; it is considered to be one of the most important parts of the whole process as wafer undergoes a number of etching before completing the whole procedure. Today, as equipment are getting more and more sophisticated, companies are able to provide etching capabilities that handle wafers in smaller quantities; they are able to etch even 300mm and smaller diameters, and more a wide variety of dielectrics and metal films.

Kiss polishing - this is utilized in the semiconductor industry to make well-used wafers look like brand new ones so that they can be used again. The process involves, first, the visual inspection so that wafers having chips and cracks are separated from those that don't have (wafers with such defects are returned unprocessed). This, along with other wafer reclaim and recovery processes, can extend the life of the wafers and therefore is advantageous particularly when it comes to costs.

The continuous development of the wafer fabrication business as well as foundry service providers and the semiconductor industry as a whole contributes to achieving even brighter future for many industries particularly those businesses that are in the electronic sectors. Better quality substrates utilized in different electronic device productions are a key component in manufacturing better products, which will certainly fuel more growth for the industry.




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