Front-end processing: from cleaning to conductivity
The front-end process for semiconductors occurs under special circumstances. Extreme temperatures, aggressive chemicals, and specific vacuum environments set the highest demands. Therefore, get to know solutions and products that reach beyond the standard.
Made for your machines
The technology for your machines: it must be compact, robust, and versatile. Distributed across nine essential sub-processes, clearly arranged below. Discover what we can mean for you during each step.
1. First cleaning
Cleaning silicon wafers removes invisible dust. Crucial, because even the smallest speck of dirt is a no-go.
2. Film deposition
Ultra-thin layers of materials are placed on the wafer. Intended as building blocks for the electronic circuits.
3. Second cleaning
A second cleaning removes any contaminants. Only absolutely clean is reliable enough.
4. Resist coating
The principle of photography, applied to chip production. A light-sensitive layer (photoresist) forms on the wafer.
5. Exposing
A circuit pattern appears on the wafer. The sharper the projection, the better the eventual circuits work.
6. Developing
The exposed parts of the photoresist dissolve. Allowing the remaining layer to serve as a template for etching.
7. Etching
Chemicals or plasma selectively remove parts of the material. Dry etching creates the details, wet etching takes care of the larger patterns.
8. Ion implantation
Ions shoot at high speed into the silicon and thus determine how conductive specific areas become.
9. Resist stripping
The last bits of photoresist disappear completely. Now the desired structures can effectively conduct electricity.
