How an Inttel Proccessor IIs Madee

----A post by
b Alfee lizzes.
Colllection by Onksssss

hai all here loook how intel proc beingg made.

come lets readd more

.tk
m
ru
fo
ets
dc

Sand. Made up of o 25 perceent silicon, is,

i after oxyygen, the seecond mostt abundantt chemical
elemennt that's in
n the earth's crust. Sannd, especia
ally quartz, has high percentages
p s of silicon
a

in
n the form ofo silicon dioxide (SiO
O2) and is the base inggredient forr semicond
ductor
mmanufacturring.
w.
ww
 .tk
m
ru
after procuring
p r sand an
raw nd separatting the siliccon, the exccess materiial is disposed of and
the silicon is purified
p in multiple
m steeps to finallly reach seemiconducttor manufa acturing
fo
uality which
qu h is called eelectronic ggrade silicon. The resu ulting puritty is so greaat that
electrronic gradee silicon maay only havve one alien n atom for every
e one billion
b silicoon atoms.
ets

After the purification proceess, the siliccon enters the meltingg phase. In n this picturre you can
see howw one big crystal
c is grrown from the purifieed silicon melt.
m The reesulting moono-crystal
iss called an ingot.
i
a dc
w.
ww
 A mono-crysstal ingot iss produced
d from electtronic grad
de silicon. One
O ingot weighs
w
approoximately 100 kilogramms (or 220 pounds) annd has a sillicon purityy of 99.99999 percent.

.tk
m
ru
The inggot is then moved ontto the slicin
ng phase wh here individual silicon n discs, callled wafers,,
fo

are sliiced thin. Some

S ingotss can stand
d higher thaan five feet.. Several diifferent diaameters of
ets

ingots exist
e depennding on the required wafer size.. Today, CP PUs are commonly made m on 300
0
mm wafeers.
a dc
w.
ww

Oncee cut, the waafers are polished unttil they havve flawless, mirror-sm
mooth surfaaces. Intel
doesnn't producee its own in
ngots and wafers,
w and instead pu urchases maanufacturinng-ready
 waferrs from third-party coompanies. IIntel’s advanced 45 nmn High-K//Metal Gatte process
usess wafers wiith a diameeter of 300 m
mm (or 12--inches). W
When Intel first
f began making
chips, it
i printed circuits
c on 50
5 mm (2-inches) waffers. These days, Intell uses 300 mm
m wafers,,
r
resulting in
n decreased
d costs per cchip.

.tk
m
ru
fo
ets

The blue liquid

d, depicted above, is a photo resiist finish sim
milar to tho
ose used in
n film for
photoggraphy. Thee wafer spiins during tthis step to
o allow an evenly-distr
e ributed coaating that's
smootth and also very thin.
a dc
w.
ww

At thiis stage, thee photo-ressistant finissh is exposeed to ultra violet

v (UV)) light. Thee chemical
reactioon triggereed by the U
UV light is similar
s to what
w happeens to film material
m in
n a camera
thee moment yyou press th
he shutter button
b

.tk
m
ru
fo

Areaas of the ressist on the wafer

w that have been exposed too UV light will
w becomee soluble.
ets

The exposure
e is done usingg masks thaat act like stencils.
s Whhen used with
w UV ligh ht, masks
createe the variouus circuit patterns.
p Thhe buildingg of a CPU essentially repeats this process
over and
a over un ntil multiplle layers arre stacked on
o top of eaach other.
a dc
w.
ww
 A lenss (middle) reduces
r thee mask's immage to a sm
mall focal point.
p The resulting
r "print" on
the waferr is typicallly four times smaller, linearly, th
han the maask's patterrn.

.tk
m
ru
fo
n the picture we have a rep presentation n of what a single transistor wou uld appear like if we
couuld see it with
w the nak ked eye. A transistor
t a as a sw
acts witch, contrrolling the flow
f of
ets

electriccal currentt in a comp

puter chip. IIntel researrchers have developed d transistors so small
that they
y claim rou
ughly 30 miillion of theem could fiit on the heead of a pin
n..
a dc
w.
ww

Aft
fter being exxposed to UV
U light, th
he exposed blue photoo resist areaas are completely
dissolved by a solvent. T
This revealss a pattern of photo reesist made by the massk. The
begin
nnings of traansistors, iinterconneccts, and oth
her electrical contactss begin to grow from
this poin
nt.

.tk
m
ru
hoto resist layer proteects wafer material
the ph m th
hat should not
n be etch
hed away. Areas
A that
fo
were exxposed willl be etched away with chemicals..
ets
a dc
w.
ww

Aftter the etch hoto resist iis removed and the deesired shape becomes visible.
hing, the ph
 .tk
m
ru
More photo
p resistt (blue) is applied
a and
d then re-exxposed to UV
U light. Exxposed phooto resist iss
then
n washed off again before the neext step, wh hich is calleed ion dopinng. This is the step
wherre ion partiicles are exposed to thhe wafer, alllowing thee silicon to change
c its chemical
c
fo

propertiies in a wayy that allowws the CPUU to control the flow off electricityy..
ets
a dc
w.
ww

through a processs called ion n implantattion (one form of a proocess called d doping) the exposed
d
areas of
o the silicoon wafer arre bombard ded with ions. Ions are implanted in the siliicon wafer
to aalter the waay silicon in
n these areas conductt electricityy. Ions are propelled
p o
onto the
surfacee of the waffer at very high velociities. An eleectrical fielld accelerattes the ionss to a speed
d
of overr 300,000 k
km/hour (rooughly 1855,000 mph)

.tk
m
ru
fo

After the ion im

mplantation,, the photo resist will be removeed and the material
m th
hat should
ets

have been doped (greeen) now haas alien atooms implan nted.
a dc
w.
ww

This transistor
t is close to b
being finish
hed. Three holes
h have been etcheed into the insulation
i
 layerr (magenta
a color) aboove the tran
nsistor. Theese three hooles will bee filled with
h copper,
which willl make up tthe connecttions to oth
her transistors.

.tk
m
ru
The wafers are put
p into a coopper sulph hate solutioon at this sttage. Copp
per ions aree deposited
fo
he transistoor through a process ccalled electroplating. The
onto th T copperr ions traveel from thee
positive terminaal (anode) tto the negaative terminnal (cathod de) which iss representeed by the
ets

wafer.
a dc
w.
ww

T copperr ions settle as a thin la

The ayer on thee wafer surrface.
 .tk
m
ru
The exxcess materrial is polish
hed off leavving a veryy thin layer of copper.
fo
ets
a dc
w.

Multtiple metal layers are created to interconneects (think wires) in between

b thee various
transsistors. Howw these connnections haave to be “w wired” is determined
d by the arcchitecture
ww

and design
d team
ms that deveelop the fun nctionality of the resp
pective proccessor (for example,
Intell’s Core i7 processor).
p . While commputer chip ps look extrremely flatt, they may y actually
have over 20 layyers to formm complex circuitry. If I you lookk at a magnnified view of o a chip,
you will
w see an in ntricate nettwork of ciircuit lines and transistors that look
l like a futuristic,
f
multi-layyered highway system m.
 .tk
This ffraction of a ready waafer is bein ng put throu ugh a first functionaliity test. In this
t stage
test paatterns aree fed into evvery single chip and thhe response from the chip monittored and
compared
m
d to "the riight answerr."
ru
fo
ets
a dc
w.
ww

Afterr tests deterrmine that the wafer has a goodd yield of fuunctioning processor
p u
units, the
w
wafer is cu
ut into piecees (called dies).
d
The dies
d that responded with w the righ ht answer to
t the test pattern
p willl be put forrward for
the nexxt step (pacckaging). Bad
B dies aree discarded d. Several years
y ago, Intel
I made key chains
outt of bad CP
PU dies.
 Thiss is an indivvidual die, which has been cut out in the prrevious step p (slicing). The die
shown here is a die
d of an Inttel Core i7 processor.
Th he substratte, the die, and
a the heaatspreaderr are put toggether to fo orm a comp pleted
proocessor. The green sub bstrate buillds the elecctrical and mechanicaal interface for the
proceessor to inteeract with tthe rest of tthe PC systtem. The siilver heatsp
preader is a thermal
interfaace where a cooling soolution willl be applied d. This will keep the processor
p co ool during
operation.
A miicroprocesssor is the most
m compleex manufacctured prod duct on earrth. In factt, it takes

.tk
hunddreds of steps and onlyy the most important ones have been visuaalized in thiis picture
story.

m
ru
fo
ets
a dc
w.
ww

Durin
ng this finall test the prrocessors wwill be tested for their key characcteristics (a
among the
tested characteris
c stics are poower dissipaation and maximum
m f
frequency). .
 .tk
Based
d on the tesst result of class testin m
ng processoors with thee same capaabilities aree put into
ru
the same
s transsporting traays. This prrocess is caalled "binning". Binniing determ mines the
maxim
mum operatting frequeency of a prrocessor, an nd batches are divided and sold according
fo

to stable speciffications.
ets
a dc
w.
ww

he mannufactured and testedd processorrs (again In ntel Core i7 processor is shown here)
h eitherr
go to system
s mannufacturerss in trays or into retaiil stores in a box. Man ny thanks to
t Intel for
supplyying the tex
xt and photoos in this p
picture storyy. or full siize images of
o this entirre process.

wooah making a proc so damn

d compllicated.
but i thanking
t forr the one wh
ho firstly crreate a processor now our
o jobs getttinh more effectively
e
andd fast n savees times