AnandTech's Intro To Semiconductor Tech 21
An anonymous reader writes: Computer hardware site AnandTech has posted a detailed introduction to semiconductor technology. It's deep enough to be insightful for understanding the chips that run your devices and the industry that built them, but also short enough that your eyes won't start bleeding in the process. The article starts by explaining why silicon is so important, and how a board is set up, structurally. Then it walks through transistor design and construction, and the underpinnings of CMOS logic. Finally, the article describes the manufacturing steps, including wafer creation, photolithography, and how metal is added/shaped at the end. They then go into the physics behind improving these components. It's a geeky and informative read.
Related: Indistingishable From Magic (Score:5, Interesting)
Back at HOPE9, there was a really awesome presentation on semiconductor manufacturing [youtube.com]. It's worth the entire 90 minutes and IMHO was the best part of the conference. I've ended up showing the video of it to a few folks now, and it never becomes less awesome.
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Yes, this video really needs to be watched and understood especially by people with unrealistic expectations from 3D printing.
Look at what we are building NOW and tell me how you think we'll be doing this at home???
Insanity.
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But they did it in Star Trek: The Next Generation!
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This video of a nuclear reactor needs to be watched and understood by those who think their Sinclair ZX80 could really control a nuclear reactor. Look at the computing complexity of what we're using NOW, and tell me how you think we'll be doing this with a microprocessor???
Britney Spears guide to semicondoctor physics (Score:2)
It may be old but this is pretty good.
http://britneyspears.ac/lasers... [britneyspears.ac]
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And then there's Barbie explains finite state machines [lardcave.net], from the old Forum 2000.
Best Summary Ever... (Score:1)
Wrong site... (Score:3)
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wow very good article (Score:3)
I'm a professional in the business and I was really happy to see that they seem to have gotten everything right! I was prepared to roll my eyes when they showed a cross-section of a bipolar transistor (which they didn't) and their treatment of BEOL processing was outstanding.
Bravo!
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Given it was AnandTech, it was expected to be of high quality and well-researched.
While AnandTech is primarily a PC oriented enthusiast website, Anand Lal Shimpi (when he was there) ensured that the content there would be extremely well
no love for power MOSFETs (Score:1)
For all the detail in this article, it would be nice to see some mention of power transistors. Advances in power devices necessarily go hand in hand with advances in CMOS, but it's a field that's often overlooked. Maybe chapter two?
A Harder Read than Advertised (Score:4, Insightful)
From the second paragraph, emphasis mine.
Ah yes, completely self explanatory, and yes, we all remember our electron orbitals.
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This may be an excellent article, but it is very poorly written. If only there were people whose job it was to read things and then ... change... them so they were better... Like... a changer? Is that a thing?
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Every time I've heard someone say something was "self-explanatory" or "self-evident" or "obvious", it was always anything but...
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When someone writes "Of course, the name is self-explanatory" they're either wasting ink on paper (because it is self-explanatory), or they're smugly saying you're an idiot for not knowing why it's so goddamned obvious.
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Semiconductors are really where materials science meets electronics. Understanding whether something is a conductor or an insulator is 7th grade science - it does seem self-explanatory to me that a semiconductor is something that is "partially" conductive. As far as electron orbitals, that's where the