Silicon integrated circuit processes

Law, M.E. and Cea, S.M. (1998) Continuum Based Modeling of Silicon Integrated Circuit Processing An Object Oriented Approach. Comput. Mater. Sci., 12, 289-308. 

Obtained values for various materials common to silicon integrated circuit processes C12)... 

Even the tight controls in silicon integrated circuit manufacturing are not yet sufficient to produce absolutely identical sensors on a single wafer. Calibration of the final product is usually necessary, often by adjusting the value of a circuit element on the IC such as a resistor. The calibration process can be automated, but it still adds to the cost of batch-fabricated sensors. Clever means of self-calibration, particulady in field use, are constandy being sought. 

As an attractive alternative to the vidicon the array of elements can be connected directly to individual voltage detectors on a silicon integrated circuit (usually referred to as a ROIC read-out integrated circuit ) via solder bumps . The resulting signals can then be electronically processed to yield a picture in the standard way. Fig. 7.13 shows a section through part of such an imaging array. 

The manufacture of silicon integrated circuits involves a sequence of inter-related steps, each designed to purify, modify, deposit, or pattern materials. Figure 3 illustrates the principal steps from silicon purification to packaging. A good review of the entire process can be found in Wolf and Tauber [6]. The requirement for ultrapure starting reagents (contaminants... 

The fabrication of these one- and two-dimensional arrays follows the device processing technology developed for crystalline silicon integrated circuits. Since the feature size of the elements is of... 

The characteristics of Lamb waves have been derived and explored by a number of authors [61,62,63,64]. Here we will focus on the aspects of the waves that are most relevant for sensing and actuating in devices made by micromachining techniques. These techniques include many of those customarily employed in making silicon integrated circuits. Examples are processes for depositing thin... 

All silicon integrated circuits (SICs) begin life as a silicon wafer, which has been cut from a silicon ingot and polished on one side to provide a smooth surface upon which thousands, even millions, of circuit elements such as transistors, diodes, and resistors will be fabricated and interconnected to yield a set of complete circuits. Circuit fabrication requires the selective difiusion of tiny amounts of impurities into specific regions of the silicon substrate to produce the desired electrical characteristics of the circuit. These regions are defined by lithographic processes that consist of two steps ... 

Chiral smectic ferroelectric liquid crystals are liquids that possess spontaneous polar order. Combined with their excellent processibility on silicon integrated circuits, these liquid crystals provide an attractive potential approach to synthesis of materials for second order nonlinear optics, provided adequate second order susceptibility can be obtained. Unfortunately, the second-order nonlinear optical susceptibility of the ferroelectric liquid crystals are usually low and their thermal stability is limited. Several, very interesting approaches to utilization of liquid crystals, however, were carried out. 

Calzada, MX., Bretos, L, Jimenez, R., Guillon, H., and Pardo, L. (2004) Low-temperature processing of ferroelectric thin films compatible with silicon integrated circuit technology. Adv, Mater, 16 (18), 1620. 

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