How to understand semiconductor manufacturing equipment

Front process and back process

Semiconductor manufacturing process is the process of processing silicon wafers into semiconductor chips. It can be roughly divided into front segment and back segment. The first section is the process of forming an integrated circuit on a silicon wafer, which is a cyclic operation process. The post-process refers to the process of cutting out the chip and packaging after the completion of the previous process.

The front process can be divided into front-end and back-end processes. Front-end technology is the formation process of basic elements such as transistor capacitance and resistance that determine the operating performance of integrated circuits. The back-end process is a multi-layer interconnect process that connects individual elements and transforms them into integrated circuits. In addition to ion implantation heat treatment only for the front end, both wash drying/lithography/etching/film forming/flattening are used.

The use of silicon wafers

The English word Wafer is Wafer, which originally means the wafer on top of the ice cream.

The following wafers are often used for semiconductor equipment maintenance

1. Wafers for particle detection are used to regularly check the cleanliness of the equipment.

2. The cycle wafer used for transportation inspection is used to test the stability of the device.

In actual production, these wafers are specific to each device to prevent cross-contamination between devices. In particular, such wafers are not mixed with other equipment before and after the metal film forming process.

Wafer handling and manufacturing equipment

In the front-end process, all the operating objects are wafers, or light masks. In the past, most wafers were handled by hand. The container used to hold the wafer is called cassette, put it in by hand, or vacuum pen.

Most fabs today use the automated AMHS handling system of the Crane OHT for the transfer of silicon wafers between equipment. The silicon wafer is loaded into the Foup, the Foup is opened through the loadport, and then transferred to the process chamber by the robot arm. The device is usually under positive pressure to prevent particles from entering the device. It is also carried out on the ground by AGV robots.

Clean room

Since the manufacturing of integrated circuits has high requirements for the cleanliness of the environment, it is necessary to ensure that the air in the entire workshop is clean, and the human body is also the source of pollutants, and people entering the workshop also need to put on a dust-free suit. At the same time, in order to improve the cleanliness of the workshop, the air conditioner needs to be ventilated frequently, and the air entering the workshop needs to be filtered through the FFU fan filter unit. The floor of the clean room is also mostly perforated, in order to make the air return, the pollutants can also be blown under the floor.

Conditions to be met for manufacturing equipment

1. Process performance is particularly required to deal with the uniformity of die within a single wafer, as well as repeatability between wafer batches.

2. The dege exclusion area should be small

Refers to the outer circumference of the wafer that is not machined. The smaller the area, the more chips can be produced.

3. Maintainability and uptime of machine.

The equipment should be easy to maintain and the maintenance time should be as short as possible.

4. Throughput The more wafers that can be processed per unit time, the better

5. Reduce footprint

6.CIM EAP function

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