IC manufacturing steps

IC manufacturing converts a silicon wafer into many identical chips by repeating a sequence of patterning, doping and deposition steps, one for each mask layer.

+-------------+   +-------------+   +--------------+
| Wafer       |-->| Oxidation / |-->| Photo-       |
| preparation |   | deposition  |   | lithography  |
+-------------+   +-------------+   +------+-------+
                                           |
+-------------+   +-------------+   +------v-------+
| Metal +     |<--| Doping      |<--| Etching      |
| interconnect|   | (implant)   |   |              |
+------+------+   +-------------+   +--------------+
       | repeat for every layer
+------v------+   +-------------+   +--------------+
| Wafer test  |-->| Dicing      |-->| Packaging +  |
| (probe)     |   |             |   | final test   |
+-------------+   +-------------+   +--------------+

1. Wafer preparation: Czochralski single crystal, slicing, polishing, cleaning.
2. Oxidation / deposition: a SiO2, poly-Si or metal film is formed.
3. Photolithography: the mask pattern is transferred to the photoresist.
4. Etching: the unprotected film is removed.
5. Doping: diffusion or ion implantation creates n and p regions.
6. Metallisation: contacts and interconnect layers are added.
7. Testing and packaging: wafer probe test, dicing into dies, packaging and final test.