The exhaustive list of topics in Microelectronic Fabrication Processes in which we provide Help with Homework Assignment and Help with Project is as follows:
- Chip Manufacturing Process, FEOL and BEOL concepts
- PhotoLithography:
- Lithography basics
- Layout, hierarchy vs flat file
- Levels and layers in layout file.
- Mask making with e-beam
- Alignment and test structures in masks.
- Lithography details:
- Projection printing
- Dark field mask
- Positive resist and its advantages.
- Process details including resist coating
- Pre-exposure bake, exposure, soft bake, developing and hard bake.
- Stepper vs scanner.
- Advanced Lithography
- Resolution
- Numerical aperture
- Optical proximity correction (OPC)
- Anti reflective coating (ARC)
- Phase shift mask (PSM).
- Production issues:
- Depth of focus
- Focus exposure matrix
- Misalignment
- Partial field vs full field
- Next generation litho (Extreme UV, XRay).
- Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) basics
- Equipment description and operation details
- RF/magnetron sputtering
- Long throw
- Ionized metal plasma (IMP) sputtering
- Collimated beam
- Sputtering yield.
- Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) basics
- Atmospheric pressure (APCVD)
- Low pressure (LPCVD)
- Plasma enhanced (PECVD)
- Mass transfer control and reaction kinetics control.
- Reactor description and operation
- Deposition of silicon
- Poly silicon, oxide, nitride and tungsten.
- Atomic layer deposition (ALD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
- Electrochemical deposition
- Electro-migration vs grain size
- Conformal
- Anti conformal and super fill.
- Suppressor
- Accelerator, levelers, effect of seed layer, spin on coating.
- Wet etching:
- Isotropic etch
- Selectivity
- Anisotropic Si etch in KOH
- Cleaning
- Micro loading and process proximity correction (ppc).
- Chemicals for oxide and nitride removal
- Effect of dopants
- Photoresist development.
- Dry etching :
- Plasma
- Anisotropic etch
- Equipment details and operation.
- Reactive ion etching (RIE)
- Veil formation and de-veil
- Electrostatic discharge (ESD)
- Aluminum etch.
- Chemical Mechanical planarization (CMP) basics
- Dishing
- Erosion
- Issues in Shallow Trench Isolation.
- Oxide Polish and Copper Polish
- Dummy fill
- Slotting.
- FEOL:
- Semiconductor electron band structure
- Band gap MOS capacitor
- MOS transistor structure for enhancement mode devices.
- MOS transistor operation:
- I-V curve
- Pinch off
- Hot carrier effect
- Lightly doped drain (LDD)
- Scaling.
- Diffusion :
- Junction depth
- Concentration profile
- Interstitial and substitutional diffusion.
- Constant source and limited source diffusion
- Dopant redistribution
- Lateral diffusion
- Rapid thermal annealing
- Gettering.
- Ion implantation :
- Detailed Equipment description
- Ion source
- Analyzer
- Accelerator
- Scanning
- Target chamber
- Elastic and inelastic collisions
- Transverse straggle
- Channeling and methods to prevent channeling.
- Oxidation:
- Native oxide
- Wet and dry oxidation
- Electro-chemical oxidation
- Solubility and diffusion of various species in oxide.
- Deal-Grove model
- Exponential growth regime
- Effect of doping.
- Process Integration:
- BEOL Issues
- Cu vs Al metallization
- Oxide vs low-k integration.
- Testing:
- Scribe line Test (for process evaluation)
- Functional Test (for product evaluation)
- Optical testing (KLA).
- Yield Models
- Process and design modifications for yield optimization.
- Tools and Techniques:
- SEM
- FIB
- AFM
- Ellipsometry.