Talk:Semiconductor device fabrication

message: Please define exactly what 'feature size' refers to; there too many vague definitions widely differring from companies to schools. tks.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.218.215.231 (talk) 06:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: The oxidation link leads to Redox which is not appropriate for semiconductor device fabrication because it ignores the growth of an SiO2 film on top of a silicon substrate. Propose breaking out "Oxidation" from Redox in order to address this issue and talk more specifically about silicon reactions with oxygen and why such reactions are performed. Alternatively, if someone has objections to this use of "Oxidation", a topic such as "Oxide Growth" or "Oxide Formation" (which could also include oxide deposition) could be used. Amadeust 21:27, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment 1

message: With Intel and IBM/ARM having already announced fab plants under construction, also AMD has clearly indicated 14nm chips as part of their roadmap, the relevant links:
Intel = http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/intel-building-14nm-chip-facility-in-arizona-for-5-billion-20110221/
IBM/ARM = http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=3257351
AMD = http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/11/10/amd-moves-cpu-architecture-into-tick-tock-mode3b-schedules-20nm2c-14nm-apus.aspx
the article should be updated to include this information, it's not really my field, so i'll leave it to someone else.
JavaByte (talk) 06:37, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  IMPORTANT add 14nm process 

message: I have issues with this part: 
"In 2005, a typical cost for a processed 300mm wafer was about $US 300,000. The desire for profit inspires manufacturers to pack more devices on a wafer."
The total surface area of a round 300mm-diameter wafer is about 71,000 mm2 (square millimeters, don't know how to superscript.) Using my Sempron CPU as an example, it uses about 100mm2. So ignoring waste about 700 Semprons-to-be fit on a wafer. That's over $400 each, and we're a long, long way from a finished product. I'd expect my $70 Sempron to cost at least $2000  if the $300,000 wafer cost is correct.
Also, they cut 1000-2000 wafers off an ingot these days, implying PER INGOT production cost  of $300,000,000 to $600,000,000 if $300,000 is correct for a single wafer.
Does anyone have a better number for wafer cost? Shyland 23:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wafer cost questioned 

message: There's an extensive list of articles that link to Fabrication (semiconductor). Now that that is a redirect page, we should edit all the source links to correctly link to the real article here at Semiconductor fabrication.
Atlant 17:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correct the source links 

message: The article refers to front end processes (photolith and doping, etc.) and back end processes (metal, etc.).  It's been a while since I worked in the industry (mid 80's) but we never referred to these processes as front or back end.  Has anyone else ever heard of them? --Phil Holmes 14:12, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Front end/Back end? 

message: I wasn't sure what to do with this article submission, so I declined it.  If it is notable, please feel free to merge the content in here or create a new article.  Wikipedia:Articles for creation/2006-04-15#RCA clean.  davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RCA clean 

message: http://www.pcplus.co.uk/node/3059/  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.173.239.146 (talk) 07:37, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article 

message: The article states there are two "steps" -- front-end processing and back-end processing. It then has a sub-heading for front-end processing, but does not have a back-end processing heading. It should clarify. Drcwright (talk) 01:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I did a bit of restructuring to clarify.  It could use more work. Dicklyon (talk) 23:21, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Front-end vs. Back-end 

message: John changed aluminum to aluminium per the guideline at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(chemistry).  It strikes me as odd, as in the semiconductor industry I've always seen it as aluminum.  Opinions?  Dicklyon (talk) 23:17, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I am the editor who amended the spelling. As an international project, Wikipedia sometimes needs to make compromises over matters of national varieties of English. For elements we use the IUPAC spellings aluminium, caesium and sulfur on science articles, even though national spelling variants may use aluminum, cesium or sulphur. See also Aluminium#Etymology. Hope that makes sense. --John (talk) 03:10, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes perfect sense, but the guideline says there can be exceptions, and this is a technology article more than a science article, so I thought it would be best to seek a consensus of editors with respect to whether it should be treated according to the science article guideline or otherwise.  Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point. I'll obviously go along with any consensus generated here. --John (talk) 03:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aluminum spelling 

message: In the table with manufacuring processes, 500nm, 150nm, 80nm, 55nm and 40nm are missing.
There could be others missing, but these are the ones I know of. Examples for these processes are;
500nm: 3dfx Voodoo Graphics & Rush chipsets.
150nm: ATi/AMD's Radeon 8500 & 9xxx series
80nm: ATi/AMD's Radeon X1550 & X1650
55nm: ATi/AMD's Radeon HD 3xxx & HD 4xxx series
40nm: ATi/AMD's Radeon HD 5xxx series.
NitroX infinity (talk) 12:44, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing manufacturing processes 

message: Most articles about manuf. processes (350 nm, 500 nm and so on), especially old, are very short. It will be better to move older processes into the article. `a5b (talk) 20:24, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  merge older processes into the article 

message: There are stub-class BEOL and FEOL articles (Backend-of-the-line processing and Frontend-of-the-line processing). I added some books to them and some information too. But they need a lot of work. `a5b (talk) 00:08, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[BEOL]] and [[FEOL]] articles 

message: OK, I have had a go at restructuring the See Also section. What I have done is put in subheadings, one for each of the headings in the main article; but I have deleted and modified a few, where appropriate (for example, the list of process steps in the main article is really already a See Also section in its own right for wafer processing and die processing).
This does lead to one possible idea... of absorbing each of my proposed subsections of the See Also section into their respective places in the main article. I will let someone else do that, if it is considered preferable.
For my part, I think that it might be good to encourage this See Also list to grow (and hence, my proposed structure, so that it grows in a structured way). At present it is far from an exhaustive list. On the other hand, the reader can probably find most of the missing topics by clicking on each of the main topic links, and then looking at their respective See also sections.
I note that there was a discussion on this talk page, some time ago, on the justification for this article, the choice of name for the article, and the decision not to merge it with a related article. This is all important stuff, of course, when considering how people wish to develop this article from here.
Just my thoughts. Feel free to build on, and rip down, what I have proposed (of course! it goes without saying, I suppose) or to contact me, if you would like me to do something further to add to this article. TheAMmollusc (talk) 07:26, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restructured See Also section 

message: I know this sounds naive, but isn't the timeline really off? It is currently middle of 2012 as I write this comment, but 22nm has only recently release by intel. No other major firms have 22nm products on mass production. The timeline labels 22nm as 2011...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.232.145 (talk) 06:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline is off 

message: I think there should be a separate article, or a section of this article that is called "Process Technology". It should be something like the article at:
http://lookup.computerlanguage.com/host_app/search?cid=C999999&term=process+technology&lookup.x=-410&lookup.y=-693
To the layman, without this separate and distinct explanation of "process technology", it is hard to read Wikipedia and get a clear understanding of the meaning of the list of line sizes (32nm, 22nm, etc) that is shown in the upper-right corner of this and other articles.  The use of the term "node" in its sense of a step along the path of process technology, should also be explained.  --Westwind273 (talk) 19:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Process Technology 

message: "Semiconductor node" redirects here. Please explain the concept. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:49, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It now redirects to ; does that explain the concept well enough? Guy Harris (talk) 07:07, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Semiconductor node" 

message: A 2020 Wall Street Journal op-ed by Andy Kessler [is losing its bet on chips] mentioned an incident where an engineer accidentally spilled ink into a fab's water supply, and yields actually went up:
"a Silicon Valley engineer once accidentally spilled ink into a fab’s water supply—and output yields went up!"
Is this real, or it just one of those apocryphal stories that floats around that nobody is sure about? If it is, does someone know where I could find more information about it - and *why* it improved things? Jimw338 (talk) 02:26, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ink in the water" story?  Real or legend? 

message: Source 2 does not mention anywhere in its article how long it takes to fabricate a silicon wafer. It is about water consumption but the largest fabs in China. 198.161.136.29 (talk) 05:33, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source 2 does not validate claims 

message: TSMC offers nodes 28nm, 16nm, 12nm but they aren't listed on the page. 2610:1C1:1:6074:0:0:16:84 (talk) 22:07, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some technology nodes are missing