Transistors and Moore's Law

transistor

electronic component that controls the flow of electricity; acts as either an amplifier (strengthen signals) or a switch (allow or block flow)

used as switches to represent binary values

how are transistors primarily used in modern computers?

1
0

_ means “on”, _ means “off”

MOFSET

primary type of transistor that modern computers rely on; stands for Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor

silicon and gallium arsenide

what is the core material of a transistor?

transistor

John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented what at Bell Labs in 1948?

semiconductor

a material with electrical conductivity between a conductor and an insulator

silicon wafer

a thin circular slice of pure single crystal silicon that serves as the physical foundation for manufacturing integrated circuits and microprocessors

photolithography

a process that shines light through a stencil onto a silicon wafer to create the intricate patterns that form billions of transistors

ASML

the sole global supplier of Extreme Ultraviolet lithography machines

TSMC

leading manufacturer that uses those lithography machines to produce the world’s most advanced chips

Moore’s Law

says that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years with min increase in cost

Dennard’s Law

the prediction that as transistors get smaller, their power consumption drops, allowing chipmakers to increase clock speeds without increasing overall power draw

density has exploded

how has transistor density changed between 2007 and today?

1. extreme precision fixed by being made in pressurized clean rooms

2. sensitive machines so fabs are only built on seismically stable ground

what are the primary operational challenges in a CPU fabrication plant and their solutions?
1.
2.

the start of every CPU as a slice of pure silicon ingot, the wafer are moved around the fab in containers called front opening unified pods

what is the silicon wafer and how is it initially handled?

it involves coating a wafer in a light sensitive material and exposing it to UV light through a mask; areas exposed to the light are removed

how does the lithography process work in chip manufacturing?

implantation

fires dopant ions into the silicon to alter its electrical characteristics, creating the n type and p type

Diffusion

furnaces then exposes the wafer to various gases at hundreds of degrees Celsius to create new combined materials on the surface

etching

the selective removal of material from the top of the wafer to create trenches, which can then be filled with coper to create interconnects

Chemical Mechanical Planarization

a polishing process using proprietary brushes and slurry to remove excess material and unevenness, often with a precision of just a few atoms or molecules

binning

the quality control step where functional dies are sorted according to their performance and capabilities

industry is moving towards IDM 2.0

(companies like intel will use their fabs to manufacture chips for third party companies)

what does the future hold for modern computer manufacturing?