What Is Semiconductor Manufacturing?
Semiconductor manufacturing is the production of single-crystal rods (silicon ingots) and wafers sliced from polycrystalline silicon and other materials, which are semiconductors.
A semiconductor is a material with properties between those of a conductor and an insulator. Integrated circuits made from semiconductors have excellent information processing capabilities and are indispensable products for all industries.
The front-end process consists of wafer fabrication, oxide film formation, pattern formation, device formation by ion implantation, diffusion, etc., repeated surface planarization, electrode formation, and wafer inspection.
The latter half of the process consists of cutting the wafer into chips, protecting the chips from the external environment, packaging the chips for signal input/output to/from peripheral components, or mounting the chips on substrates, and inspection.