What is a silicon wafer?

A silicon wafer is a very thin, round sheet of silicon that has been purified to around 99.9999999% purity and sliced from a silicon ingot. It serves as the substrate on which ICs are fabricated.

How is the Skywater 130nm wafer prepared?

The type of silicon used in the Skywater 130nm process is doped to become p-type before being patterned. After the wafers are ready, they are patterned using the photolithographic process with a series of masks.

How are silicon wafers made?

Silicon is purified to extreme levels, then melted and a crystal ingot is pulled from the molten material. The ingot is then sliced into very thin round sheets called wafers.

Wafer

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November 13, 2020

Silicon is purified to around 99.9999999%! Then it is sliced into very thin round sheets called wafers.

silicon wafers

The type used in the Skywater 130nm process is doped to become p-type.

Here’s a great video about how silicon wafers are made.

And these great videos are about the birth of the Japanese semiconductor industry. Jump to about 12 minutes in to see how they pull the silicon ingot out of the molten material.

After the wafers are ready, they can be patterned using the photolithographic process, using a series of masks.

Course feedback

It was a great fun way to introduce people to Verilog and basic digital design in general. You don't have to have done tons of FPGA stuff or be an expert at Verilog at all. If you’re interested in hardware in general I'd say it's accessible.

Matthew Beech (digital course)