What are the technical and equipment difficulties in the small chip manufacturing
Semiconductor chip is the core of modern information technology, it has an irreplaceable role in the development of human society. However, although the chip manufacturing seems small, is full of technology and equipment difficulties.
Difficulties in process technology
Chip manufacturing usually requires dozens or even hundreds of complex processes, in which each process step requires precise control and adjustment. Therefore, process technology is a major difficulty in chip manufacturing.
First, photolithography is one of the most important technologies in chip manufacturing, and it is responsible for printing graphics patterns onto chips. Modern photolithography is extremely expensive and requires very high photolithography resolution. The enhancement of photolithography light source power and the control of etching edge effect are all difficult problems that need to be solved.
Second, due to the unique nature of semiconductor materials, resulting in the manufacture of the chip is very difficult to accurately control, a very small amount of impurities or loss of material may lead to the chip can not work properly. Therefore, material purification, doping and other processes require a high degree of precision control, and this is one of the process technology difficulties.
Equipment Difficulties
Chip manufacturing requires a number of different pieces of equipment to work together, and these pieces of equipment themselves present a number of technical difficulties.
First of all, because the process of chip manufacturing is extremely complex, it requires the use of complex and sophisticated processing equipment, such as ion implantation machines, chemical vapor deposition equipment and so on. The operation of these devices requires a high degree of stability and precision, once the failure will have a great impact on the manufacturing.
Secondly, chip manufacturing needs to be spray-etched on the chip surface, electron beam exposure and other processing processes, and the high-precision processing of these processes need to use high-quality control of magnetic field equipment, precision welding robots and other equipment.
Further development
While the chip manufacturing technology and equipment have a lot of difficulties, but with the continuous development of science and technology, we believe that these difficulties will gradually be overcome.
For example, in recent years, photolithography has seen the emergence of photolithography machines that can make decisions on their own, and the combination of computer vision technology, artificial intelligence and other technologies have made optical pattern projection and chip definition more intelligent and efficient.
In addition, quantum chips have also become a new research direction, and are expected to become a completely new way of information processing in the future.
In short, whether it is now or in the future, chip manufacturing is a very need to pay attention to a field, we look forward to the chip processing technology can continue to develop and innovate, for the progress of human society to contribute more power.