What is a wafer?

Wafer refers to a silicon wafer used in silicon semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturing. Since it has a round shape, it is called a wafer; on the silicon wafer, it can be processed into various circuit element structures and become an IC with a specific electrical function. product. The original material of the wafer is silicon, and the surface of the crust is inexhaustible silicon dioxide. Silica ore is extracted through an electric arc furnace, chlorinated with hydrochloric acid, and distilled to produce high-purity polycrystalline silicon with a purity of 99.999999999%.

The wafer fab melts the polysilicon, then seeds the seed crystal in the melt, and slowly pulls it out to form a cylindrical monocrystalline silicon crystal rod. Because the silicon crystal rod is oriented by one crystal plane The determined seeds are gradually formed in the molten silicon raw material, and this process is called "long crystal". The silicon crystal rods are cut, barreled, sliced, chamfered, polished, and laser-engraved. After packaging, they become the basic raw material for an integrated circuit factory—silicon wafers. This is the “wafer.”