From Silicon To Microprocessors 174
prostoalex writes "Jim Turley from Embedded Systems Programming magazine answers the question of where microprocessors come from. While the public generally knows about the silicon and microprocessor vendors, few can describe the process of turning the beach sand into the latest and greatest several-hundred-dollars-worth CPU."
The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:5, Funny)
Right, mommy?
Re:The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:1)
Re:The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:1)
Right, mommy?
No honey, they come from mommy's poon.
Re:The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:2)
Either that, or fatigue's setting in. I'm not sure which.
Re:The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:2, Funny)
Don't you mean... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't you mean... (Score:1)
Yea that's probably more the reality of it.
Re:The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:1)
Re:The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:2)
Is that why non-thermal-diode-protected processors burn? B-because they're made of wood?
Re:The birds and bees, flowers and trees (Score:2)
> > Is that why non-thermal-diode-protected processors burn? B-because they're made of wood?
> What else floats on water?
>
> A Processor!
Now that I think about it, a cut chip die would probably float due to surface tension, and it would definitely qualify as a "very small rock".
...giant silver bolognas... (Score:5, Funny)
That, my friends, is a really unpleasant image.
Then it's sliced into exceptionally thin wafers about 6 to 8 inches (200 to 300mm) across, depending on the diameter of the ingot.
Owwww!!!!
Re:...giant silver bolognas... (Score:5, Informative)
obligatory family guy reference... (Score:2)
Re:...giant silver bolognas... (Score:2)
some neat stuff, despite you are not being serious (Score:5, Informative)
* ingots are not always "grown." (think dipping candles) there is also a technique where you start off with a polychrystaline ingot and use localized heating to progressively monocrystalize it by localized melting. The technique is similar to one of the methods of removing impurities from iron bars.
* CMP is damn cool. I mean, it's nice and all hearing about "polish to within an atom" precision, but if you take a polished wafer, it would make the best mirror you'd ever own. Granted silicon is not the perfect reflective surface, but you won't get a mirror more accuratly shows every feature on your face. =) Otoh, when dusts and stuff DO get into the CMP machines, though, it scratches the wafer. Though you don't see it, when you trace failures on the wafer the failing gates would generally follow an arc shape (corresponding to the wafer and polishing head rotation), and from that you get the CMP machine checked out.
random junk I thought that was kinda neat.
** I used to know about 3 years ago but then I forgot. so don't expect like a correct answer or nothing.
Re:some neat stuff, despite you are not being seri (Score:2)
I won't get any extra points for this becuase I'm having trouble imagining what you're saying, but if you mean the radius of the ring blade is greater than the diameter of the ingot, that's so it can slice the wafer in one clean cut.
inner blade cutter (Score:2)
Imagine Xena's little tossing ring thing. Xena's tossing ring thing has the blade edge on the outer edge of the ring.
reverse that, and put the blade on the INNER edge of the ring.
make sure diameter of inner edge is larger than ingot diameter.
put ingot through the center of the inner-blade ring cutter.
proceed to cut.
image here? ttp://www.atock.com/newproducts/
The inner black area is the blade. stick what you want to cut through the hole and proceed to c
Re:...giant silver bolognas... (Score:2)
It's all about what catches the eye (Score:5, Funny)
One supplier (Score:5, Informative)
I'd always thought these materials were made in hot, dry climates, like Arizona, yet there was a supplier right in my backyard.
Oh, everyone knows... (Score:3, Funny)
*sqlorch*
*SQLORCH*
*Ding!*
Clean Rooms (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you that have never been in a clean room, there is a tremendous amount of ambient sound due to the very important air cleaning/circulation system. In order to make the clean room "clean", there can only be so much dust particles in the air. (e.g. 1ppm) (there are actually different classes of clean rooms)
The ramification of this is that one can hardly hear one's voice. Personally, I'm glad I'm not in the semiconductor field
Re:Clean Rooms (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Clean Rooms (Score:3, Funny)
Well, shoot! That sure blows my image, I thought it was the disco music that people in Intel 'bunny suits' [tow.com] danced to.
Its not the laminar flow systems making the noise. (Score:5, Informative)
The materials used to produce semiconductors are extremely deadly to humans as are many of the process by products.
Pretty much every processing tool has multiple exhaust connections which remove potentially harmful fumes to a scrubbing system on the roof that removes the toxic chemicals which are then treated and disposed.
There are other noises from the tools and support equipment but I assume you thought it was the laminar air flow filtering system because it sounded like high volume air movement. They do move high volumes of air but you don't want the air moving too fast as it will stir up any particles that may be present in the room.
burnin
oh, I do work in a clean room, have since 1989.
Geeks and history (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Geeks and history (Score:1)
I don't know if knowing the history is necessarily important. It seems to me what is more lacking in computer science majors I've seen is developed mathematical and logical skill. But then, computer science is only my minor, so I might tend to think that all computer scientists should be mathematicians :P
Try Intel's museum (Score:5, Informative)
I can, and in only 4 letters (Score:4, Funny)
Man, I'm old! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Man, I'm old! (Score:2)
the truth (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:1)
Re:the truth (Score:2)
It's all too easy.
tinker-toys (Score:5, Funny)
Only if you're buying intel can you get the latest and greatest for only several-hundred-dollars-worth. We call the intel servers at work "tinker-toys" because they are wimpy and cannot get much real work done.
The Alphaserver GS160, the IBM RS/6000, and the Sunfire 12k. Those are the manly servers that do the real work around here. I don't think you can replace fans in these things for "several-hundred-dollars-worth".
Re:tinker-toys (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps that is the case if you are a l33t g4m3r. Which I suspect you are.
If you are running a nationwide medical record database with 8000 concurrent users (I am), there is NO intel machine ANYWHERE that can handle the load.
The current crop of Itanium or Xeon servers (even 8 and 16 way) cannot even come close to the performance of the GS series Alphaservers. Not even close. Not for processing power, and definitely not for memory bandwi
Leaves out the meat... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Leaves out the meat... (Score:4, Informative)
But as far as an article targeted at a total layperson goes, it's okay. Not that most laypeople don't quickly lose interest when you start talking about wafers, masks, reticles, photoresist, process steps. You always have to start with the broader concepts and see when their eyes glaze over:
What do you do?
I work at a place that makes computer chips
Oh really? What kinds?
All kinds. I work in the ASICS group.
ASICS? Like the sneakers?
Re:Leaves out the meat... (Score:1)
Re:Leaves out the meat... (Score:5, Informative)
To work in a bunny suit on the production floor? A high school diploma is often enough. To work in test/yield improvement? An EE degree, perhaps. To actually develop the bleeding edge processes? A PhD in physics.
There's far more to it than that, of course. And the actual chip designers could be across the parking lot or around the world.
Re:Leaves out the meat... (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course these same people have been working in the industry for 20+ years and have more than earned a PhD with all the work they've done bringing the industry to where it is today.
I just want to make sure you don't scare anyone away making them think they have to get a PhD in physics to get into the biz.
Misses one important point: yield. (Score:5, Informative)
And that is ofcourse why moving to a smaller technology (eg from
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:2, Insightful)
Beg pardon? Seems for the last 20 years processors have been gaining pins like some adherence to Moore's law. Seen the Athlon 64's lately? Didn't the 6502, 8086 and z80 processors have like 40 pins? I can't see a correllation between pins and die size.
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:2)
Smaller die would loosely correlate to less power, with fewer power and ground pins (most of the pins on a processor). But certainly you can design a processor that sucks amps and a DRAM of the same die size that break the correlation.
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:2)
Not everything is using pins now...
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:2)
Smaller die size will have the same number of pins. The electrical interface to the chip will be the same; the only change will be the physical size of the die and interconnects in the package, and perhaps the clock speed may be a bit faster.
-Z
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:1)
Repeatability is the name of the game and you have to use all kinds of sophisticated measuring devices like Scanning Electron Microscopes, Laser particle scanners and electrical device measurements in the scribe lanes between the chips at each layer to keep the whole process running swee
Yield terminology wrong... (Score:2, Informative)
You are correct that smaller die sizes produce more die per wafer, however, shrinking the structures in a die's circuit make it more susceptible to failure due to contamination. Therefore you are actually wrong when you state that a smaller die wil
Why just square chips? (Score:5, Interesting)
For an example, let's look at a 200mm silicon wafer, which has about 986cm2 of surface area. That's about the size of a salad plate. Let's say your chips are square (most are) and they measure 10mm on a side?that's 100mm2 per chip. If the silicon wafer was also square you could fit 986 chips on your wafer. Alas, wafers are round so you can really only get about 279 chips on a wafer.
I guess the obvious question, since using squares on a round wafer wastes a certain amount of silicon, is why squares? Why not build a hex grid? That would seem to maximize the usage of the available area.
But then, I suppose cutting them out would be significantly more difficult.
What about triangles, then? Straight lines up and down, and in one (or both) diagonal directions.
On the other hand, someone's already thought of this:
Intel's old i960MX microprocessor was octagonal. It was so big its corners had to be cut off.
So my idea has an obvious flaw. The question is... what is it?
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:5, Funny)
They tried this once, but all the geeks in the clean room started putting little orcs on the chips and played Dungeons and Dragons
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:2)
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:2)
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:1)
The corners would also be a little fragile and the manufacturing equipment used to process the wafers would need to establish a plasma for example across the wafer all the way out to the corners - wasting
Shape of the Chip (Score:2, Interesting)
But then, I suppose cutting them out would be significantly more difficult.
What about triangles, then? Straight lines up and down, and in one (or both) diagonal directions.
Well, NVidia discovered rotating them 45 degrees give them a diamond instead of a square. Think they're onto something?
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:2)
So you either have a tremendously more complex internal design, which makes use of these diagonals or you throw away space on the die itself. And for what? Upgrading to a larger wafer and smaller dies would bring do
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:3, Informative)
Or why even flat chips? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ball Technologies [ballsemi.com]
burnin
Re:Or why even flat chips? (Score:2)
Heh heh... good one. And it got modded up as Informative instead of Funny -- I love it when that happens!
Or maybe I just didn't poke around the ballsemi.com site enough to find the pictures of their 3-D wafer fab [gamespy.com].
Re:Or why even flat chips? (Score:2)
Besides, I was merely pointing out that thinking up new ways of doing things is a good thing and there are others who are actively doing it. So considering that I posted a link to a company that is working on different methods of producing semiconducto
Re:Or why even flat chips? (Score:2)
Too cool! I thought you were pulling my leg, by finding a company named "Ball Semiconductor" and suggesting that they have something to do with spherical chips. That's why I thought it was more Funny than Informative.
I guess it's a good thing Slashdot won't give me mod points anymore!
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:2)
Chips are generally rectangular since they are composed of rectangualar sub-blocks. These sub-blocks are rectangular in part because transitors are laid out as retangles. Also, automatic routing tools route on a manhattan grid. Also, wire bonding tools only deal with rectangualr shapes. Flip chip bond p
Re:Why just square chips? (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed, and in fact, this is one of the reasons why we need the International Space Station, because as it turns out, certain crystallization/sillication (whatever its called, apologies to the chemists...) processes, in a micro-gravity environment, are a lot easier to control in a fashion which produces high-yield, multi-dimensional composite core materials. At micro-nano-levels, gravity definitely takes its
The Silicon Fairy (Score:1, Funny)
This doesn't make sense... (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought big screen TVs were "blurry" up close because they had fewer pixels per area. Besides... in this case, you wouldn't be making the image bigger, you would just be making a LOT of tiny images at once. Can someone either explain how his explaination makes sense, or what the real reason is?
Re:This doesn't make sense... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This doesn't make sense... (Score:2)
Projection blur (Score:3, Informative)
It sounds like they focus the center exactly and let it get blurry the further out you go (this is the case where the plane is tangent to the sphere -- a zero-radius circle of
Re:Projection blur (Score:2)
Re:This doesn't make sense... (Score:2, Insightful)
ESP (Score:2)
Isn't this a tad specific? Why not a magazine about processors period? Is that too big? Just how much content can you have being specific about Embedded Systems Programming. Seriously, I'm asking.
And if it's about Programming, why is this an article about processors? I'm so lost, and i don't think it's my fault this time. Flame away boys i'm bored.
Re:ESP (Score:5, Insightful)
A huge amount. Many embedded systems have real-time requirements, tight memory-space limitations, and a much lower tolerance for failure than desktop systems. If you're talking about a comsumer embedded device (e.g. a cellphone), you have to deal with power management as well. There are multiple operating systems to choose from, several types of processor architectures (including the Harvard Archirtecture typified by Intel's old 8051 family that has entirely separate memory spaces for instructions and data), and several buses specific to embedded systems work.
Why should this matter? There are several embedded systems in your car, and I'm sure you'd be mightily ticked if your car just stopped working randomly. On a more mundane level, what about programmable thermostats or the security card readers where you go to work? That's not to mention the mission-critical embedded systems in aircraft and medical devices.
Re:ESP (Score:2)
Well, having read ESP for at least 10 years, perhaps I can answer.
A lot!! The amount of Desktop CPUs sold is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of embedded CPUs. Look around the average house and compare the number of "computer controlled" items versus the number of desktop (i.e, Windows, Linux, Mac) computers. Just in my living room alone I can think of the thermostat, X10 lighting contr
Wafer Diameter? (Score:5, Funny)
And I agree, clean rooms are no fun. Ever trying typing on a plastic-coated miniature keyboard with two pairs of gloves?
Luxury! (Score:1)
And I agree, clean rooms are no fun. Ever trying typing on a plastic-coated miniature keyboard with two pairs of gloves?
That sounds awkward but you ever tried typing 2000+ lines of hex code on a ZX81? [u-net.com]
Santa brought me one of those, a rubiks cube, a metal detector and the 1982 Guinness Book of World Records (Train spotter's edition I think) for christmas. I think my mum must have told him I was doing poorly in school or something. I do recall though, I specifically asked Santa, at his grotto in the loc
Too elementary... (Score:5, Informative)
Pure silicon chunks are actually made from condensing a very pure Silicon gas called Silane. The chunks are broken up, and melted in a very hot furnace, with a crucible made out of quartz(usually). Any doping, or impurities to give the silicon it's different electrical properties are added at this point. Boron (B) is fairly common.
Then, a nice perfect seed crystal of silicon is dipped into the molten silicon which starts to crystalize around the seed crystal. The growing crystal is turned and slowly pulled out of the liquid silicon as it grows to help keep it regular. The result is called a boule, or "the bologna looking thing"
As a side note, the doping is usually too high at the top of the boule, and too low at the end of the boule, so only about the middle 25% is used.
Then it gets sliced into wafers. etc. etc.
Re:Too elementary... (Score:1, Interesting)
Mistakes? (Score:5, Informative)
(1) Silicon is not sand. Sand is silicon dioxide (well, most sand). It needs to be reduced (the oxygen needs to be removed) and purified. And purified. And purified. (I believe Brazilian quartz is actually the preferred stock for silicon dioxide, rather than sand, due to its purity.)
(2) Photo-resist does not need to be electrically conductive. It does need to be capable of resisting attack by whatever chemicals are next in the step (especially the HF). Since they're usually polymers that are either polymerized or depolymerized by the exposure, they generally are not conductive.
(3) Current generation laser steppers are not EUV. (They are UV, maybe DUV, being slightly less than 1/2 the wavelength of visible indigo.)
(4) One could get the impression that each chip on the wafer is processed separately at each step.
(5) Fabs and foundries are related but distinct entities. (I personally have worked in a fab, but never a foundry.)
(6) It's the mask that is imprinted on the wafer's photoresist, not the chip.
(7) Moore's law is incorrectly repeated. This is especially bad because it claims to be correcting the common belief (which it probably is). Moore's law was about the economics of chip density -- the most _cost effective_ density doubles every 18 months.
(8) I've usually heard and talked about individual die and multiple dice. (And breaking up wafers into chips is called dicing.) Maybe others call them (plural) die, but not everyone.
(9) The 200mm wafer area calculations are wrong. A 200mm wafer has a radius of 10cm; the area is therefore (10)^2*pi ~= 310cm^2. So one won't get 986 die from a square wafer and only 279 from a round one.
(10) Lots and lots of companies don't build their chips on the smallest feature sizes possible. Very few can afford to manufacture 90nm chips at this point, so the bulk of chip _designs_ are manufactured at
There are probably many more errors...
RJ
Re:Mistakes? (Score:1, Interesting)
Most of your "errors" are missing details at best. This article provides an excellent introduction to the technologies, so quit being so pedantic.
I seem to recall.... (Score:1, Interesting)
As he explained it he never mentions how the pattern get burned into the silicon. Tsk tsk.
correct (Score:2, Interesting)
But this may not always be the case. It may be headed for an implant step. A nice electron beam zaps the wafer while it is laced with boron, or arsenic, etc.
burnin
Why the clean rooms? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why the clean rooms? (Score:1)
Re:Why the clean rooms? (Score:2, Informative)
Also, mostly the machines are made by different vendors, so they don't have communication protocols to "talk" to one another, or to talk to a central dispatching control system. Therefore you need operators to move parts from machine to machine, and to select the appropriate programs to run on each machine (the parts pass through each machine multiple times, getting different processing each t
Re:Why the clean rooms? (Score:2, Informative)
Manufacturers are able to completely automate the entire wafer handling process. The alignment for handling and processing is many times better than what any human could do.
And there have been standard communication protocols for interconnecting tools and systems for many years now. The two most common protocols are SECS and GEM.
burnin
Whose Power PC? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Where do microprocessors come from, Daddy?" That's an awkward question we all must answer at some stage in our careers. What mysterious process converts elemental silicon into elemental forces like Intel's Itanium or Motorola's PowerPC? Let us explore the wonder that is semiconductor creation.
Shouldn't that include IBM? [macobserver.com]
I have always wondered... (Score:2, Funny)
I always wondered why people bragged about their new computer and made the comment about leaving mine in the dust!
recognizing people in bunny suits (Score:3, Interesting)
uhm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:near-first post (Score:2)
Re:near-first post (Score:1)
Re:near-first post (Score:3, Informative)
The term "3rd World" was coined to describe the rest of the world, after NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations, which were implied to be the first and second worlds respectively.
Although that definition didn't stick, the phrase did, and quickly came to take on the meaning that we all know, since most of the nations it included were desperately poor.
(Here endeth the history lesson
Re:near-first post (Score:1)
Re:near-first post (Score:2, Informative)
And, if it's history education we're after... Sauvy, a French demographer, is generally credited with the term. He wanted to convey how Third World countries are exploited by the first and second. It was an analogy dating to the French Revolution when the first two estates (clergy and nobility) exploited the third (the commoners).
Re:near-first post (Score:2)
Well, it was 3rd Reich, for a time...
Re:near-first post (Score:1)
Re:near-first post (Score:3, Insightful)
Raw silicon is grown into crystal ingots, which look like giant silver bolognas. Then it's sliced into exceptionally thin wafers about 6 to 8 inches (200 to 300mm) across
Ummm... yeah...
Re:near-first post (Score:1, Troll)