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

The Zero to Asic analog course is a wonderful course put together by Matt . He and his team have meticulously planned the course with lots of good examples and support to get started with the tools for designing your own chips. Hats off to the team for developing such a course and making it available for the users.

Sudhansu Mishra (analog course)