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Silicon Wafer
In electronics, a wafer (also called a slice or substrate) is a thin slice of semiconductor, such as a crystalline silicon (c-Si), used for the fabrication of integrated circuits and, in photovoltaics, to manufacture solar cells. The wafer serves as the substrate for microelectronic devices built in and upon the wafer. It undergoes many microfabrication processes, such as doping, ion implantation, etching, thin-film deposition of various materials, and photolithographic patterning. Finally, the individual microcircuits are separated by wafer dicing and packaged as an integrated circuit. History In the semiconductor or silicon wafer industry, the term wafer appeared in the 1950s to describe a thin round slice of semiconductor material, typically germanium or silicon. Round shape comes from single-crystal ingots usually produced using the Czochralski method. Silicon wafers were first introduced in the 1940s. By 1960, silicon wafers were being manufactured in the U.S. by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VLSI
Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) chips were developed and then widely adopted, enabling complex semiconductor and telecommunication technologies. The microprocessor and memory chips are VLSI devices. Before the introduction of VLSI technology, most ICs had a limited set of functions they could perform. An electronic circuit might consist of a CPU, ROM, RAM and other glue logic. VLSI enables IC designers to add all of these into one chip. History Background The history of the transistor dates to the 1920s when several inventors attempted devices that were intended to control current in solid-state diodes and convert them into triodes. Success came after World War II, when the use of silicon and germanium crystals as radar detectors led to improvements in fabrication ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thin-film Deposition
A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many applications. A familiar example is the household mirror, which typically has a thin metal coating on the back of a sheet of glass to form a reflective interface. The process of silvering was once commonly used to produce mirrors, while more recently the metal layer is deposited using techniques such as sputtering. Advances in thin film deposition techniques during the 20th century have enabled a wide range of technological breakthroughs in areas such as magnetic recording media, electronic semiconductor devices, integrated passive devices, LEDs, optical coatings (such as antireflective coatings), hard coatings on cutting tools, and for both energy generation (e.g. thin-film solar cells) and storage ( thin-film batteries). It is also bein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nine (purity)
Nines are an informal, logarithmic notation for proportions very near to one, or equivalently percentages very near 100%. Their common uses include grading the purity of materials. Put simply, "nines" are the number of consecutive nines in a percentage such as 99% (two nines) or a decimal fraction such as 0.999 (three nines). The number of nines of a proportion is \mathrm = -\log_(1-x) However, there are different conventions for stating a non-integer number of nines. 99.5% could be expressed as "two nines five" or 2.3 nines, as outlined below. A completely pure material ( = 1) would have an infinite number of nines. Precious metals The exact purity of very fine precious metals such as platinum, gold and silver can be of great interest. Based on the system of millesimal fineness, a metal is said to be ''one nine'' or ''one nine fine'' if it is 900 fine, or 90% pure. A metal that is 990 fine is then described as ''two nines fine'' and one that is 999 fine is described as ''thre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crystalline
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macroscopic single crystals are usually identifiable by their geometrical shape, consisting of flat faces with specific, characteristic orientations. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography. The process of crystal formation via mechanisms of crystal growth is called crystallization or solidification. The word ''crystal'' derives from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning both " ice" and " rock crystal", from (), "icy cold, frost". Examples of large crystals include snowflakes, diamonds, and table salt. Most inorganic solids are not crystals but polycrystals, i.e. many microscopic crystals fused together into a single solid. Polycrystals include most metals, rocks, ceramics, and ice. A third catego ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siltronic
Siltronic AG is a manufacturer of wafers made of hyperpure silicon, the basis for modern micro- and nanotechnology. The Munich-based company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of wafers for the semiconductor industry. History The company was founded in 1968 as Wacker-Chemitronic Gesellschaft für Elektronik-Grundstoffe mbH ("Wacker-Chemitronic") in Burghausen and changed its name to Wacker Siltronic GmbH in 1994. The company was renamed as a stock corporation (Wacker Siltronic AG) in 1996. In 2004, the company changed its name to Siltronic AG. The company manufactures silicon wafers with diameters of up to 300 mm at its two German production sites in Burghausen and Freiberg, as well as at sites in Asia and the USA. The company is a member of the Silicon Saxony association/industry association. In 2020, it was announced that Siltronic would be sold to Taiwanese manufacturer GlobalWafers, a subsidiary of Sino-American Silicon Products (SAS), for a good 3.7 billion e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation
Hemlock Semiconductor (HSC) is the largest and only producer of hyper-pure polysilicon headquartered in the United States. Founded in 1961, it is owned by Corning Inc. and Shin-Etsu Handotai and named after Hemlock, Michigan, the location of its factory. Its current facilities produce between 30,000 and 35,000 tons of polycrystalline silicon, ranking it among the top five producers worldwide. Polycrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry. Former Tennessee facility The company expanded with the Japanese joint venture partners Shin-Etsu Chemical and Mitsubishi Materials, for a new $1.2 billion plant opening near Clarksville, Tennessee. Though it officially opened in 2012, chemicals were never inventoried and no product was made. The plant was under negotiations in 2011 for a further $3 billion expansion, to keep pace with manufacturing competition from Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shin-Etsu Chemical
is the largest chemical company in Japan, ranked No. 9 in Forbes Global 2000 for chemical sector. Shin-Etsu has the largest global market share for polyvinyl chloride, semiconductor silicon, and photomask substrates. The company was named one of Thomson Reuters Top 100 Global Innovators in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. “Shin-Etsu” in the company's name derives from Shin'etsu Region, where the company established the first chemical plant as Shin-Etsu Nitrogen Fertilizer in 1926, though the company today is headquartered in Tokyo and has its manufacturing locations in 14 countries worldwide. Segments Shin-Etsu splits its business into three distinct groups: ; Organic and inorganic chemicals : Main products: polyvinyl chloride (PVC), silicones, methanol, chloromethane, cellulose derivatives, polyvinyl alcohols, caustic soda, and silicon metals ; Electronics materials : Main products: semiconductor silicon, organic materials, rare earth magnets for the electronics industry and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epitaxy
Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth or material deposition in which new crystalline layers are formed with one or more well-defined orientations with respect to the crystalline seed layer. The deposited crystalline film is called an epitaxial film or epitaxial layer. The relative orientation(s) of the epitaxial layer to the seed layer is defined in terms of the orientation of the crystal lattice of each material. For most epitaxial growths, the new layer is usually crystalline and each crystallographic domain of the overlayer must have a well-defined orientation relative to the substrate crystal structure. Epitaxy can involve single-crystal structures, although grain-to-grain epitaxy has been observed in granular films. For most technological applications, single domain epitaxy, which is the growth of an overlayer crystal with one well-defined orientation with respect to the substrate crystal, is preferred. Epitaxy can also play an important role while growing superlatti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SunEdison
SunEdison, Inc. (formerly MEMC Electronic Materials) is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, the company was sold by Monsanto in 1989. It is one of the leading solar-power companies worldwide, and with its acquisition of wind-energy company First Wind in 2014, SunEdison is the leading renewable energy development company in the world. In 2015, SunEdison sold off its subsidiary SunEdison Semiconductor, marking the completion of SunEdison, Inc.'s transition from a semiconductor-wafer company to a dedicated renewable-energy corporation. Following years of major expansion and the announcement of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MEMC Electronic Materials
SunEdison, Inc. (formerly MEMC Electronic Materials) is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, the company was sold by Monsanto in 1989. It is one of the leading solar-power companies worldwide, and with its acquisition of wind-energy company First Wind in 2014, SunEdison is the leading renewable energy development company in the world. In 2015, SunEdison sold off its subsidiary SunEdison Semiconductor, marking the completion of SunEdison, Inc.'s transition from a semiconductor-wafer company to a dedicated renewable-energy corporation. Following years of major expansion and the announcement of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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