Ic Technologies and Fabrication Steps

VARIOUS IC TECHNOLOGIES
• The most significant component in an integrated circuit or in

any circuit is its active element (i.e., TRANSISTOR).
• The active element can be either a bipolar junction transistor
or a MOSFET.
• Based on the type of active element employed different
technologies are available to produce integrated circuits.
• They are : I. Bipolar Technology
2. MOS Technology
3. CMOS Technology
4. Bi CMOS Technology
I. Bipolar Technology
• Integrated circuits were first produced using bipolar

technologies. This technology employs bipolar junction
transistor as its active element.
• Analog integrated circuits evolved from bipolar technologies.
• This technology has very analog properties.
• The high speed & High current drive capability of the silicon
bipolar transistor makes it an appealing choice for several
analog and digital applications.
• Several applications of bipolar technologies are operational
amplifiers, power output stages, tuners, mixers, fast gate
arrays, multiplexers and demultiplexers.
2. MOS Technology
• This technology employs N-type MOSFET as its active

element. MOS technology has slowly replaced the bipolar
technology in several applications.
• The main reasons are MOS transistor occupies less space and
consumes very less power compared to BJT.
• In the early stages, MOS electronic circuits were built using
PMOS devices because they were easy to fabricate.
• As MOS technology advanced, NMOS devices replaced PMOS
devices because the speed of NMOS is superior to PMOS.
• Since, the ICs cannot withstand large amount of power,
electronic devices consuming power much less than MOS
devices were required.
• This requirement led to the development more power
efficient complementary MOS (CMOS) devices.
3. CMOS Technology
• Among all the technologies CMOS technology is
the most important technology.
• The main reason for its dominance is very high
packing density, low power consumption and
scalability.
• This technology employs both NMOS and PMOS
devices as its active element. Several applications
of CMOS technology are microprocessors,
microcontrollers, digital signal Processors, static
and dynamic memories.
• It is also used for various other analog circuits as
image sensors, data converters, and highly
integrated transceivers for communication.
4. BiCMOS Technology
• BiCMOS technology is a mixture of both Bipolar
and CMOS technologies.
• CMOS technology offers less power dissipation,
smaller rise margins, and higher packing density.
• Bipolar technology, on the other hand ensures
high switching and I/O speed, good noise
performance.
• It follows that BiCMOS technology accomplishes
both improved speed over CMOS and lower
power dissipation than bipolar technology.
• The main drawback of BiCMOS technology is the
higher cost due to the added process complexity.
PROCESSING STEPS IN IC FABRICATION
• WAFER PREPARATION
• OXIDATION
• PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY
• DIFFUSION
• EPITAXY
• METALIZATION
During a complete fabrication run some of these steps are repeated many
times, in different combinations and in different processing conditions.
WAFER PREPARATION
• Ic’s are fabricated on very high purity single
crystal silicon wafer. Using crystal growth
techniques a single crystal silicon bar is
produced. This Si-bar is then sliced to produce
circular wafers that are 400 to 600 um thick.
• The surface of the wafer is then polished to a
mirror finish
oxidation
The function of a layer of silicon dioxide (SiO2) on a chip is
multipurpose. SiO2 plays an important role in IC technology because
no other semiconductor material has a native oxide which is able to
achieve all the properties of SiO2. The role of SiO2 in IC fabrication
is as below :
• It acts as a diffusion mask permitting selective diffusions into

silicon wafer through the window etched into oxide.
• It is used for surface passivation which is nothing but creating

protective SiO2 layer on the wafer surface. It protects the junction
from moisture and other atmospheric contaminants.
• It serves as an insulator on the water surface. Its high relative
dielectric constant, which enables metal line to pass over the active
silicon regions.
• SiO2 acts as the active gate electrode in MOS device structure.
• It is used to isolate one device from another.
• It provides electrical isolation of multilevel metallization used in

VLSI.
• Silicon dioxide (silica) layer is formed on the surface of a silicon

wafer by thermal oxidation at high temperatures in a stream of
oxygen.
Si+02 = SiO2 (solid)

PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY
• For fabrication of any active or passive components on
the silicon substrate, it has to be doped selectively.
• The oxide is removed from the regions where doping
has to be done and kept in other regions to protect the
substrate from doping.
• Wherever the oxide is present, it will act as a mask
against doping. So, those portions where oxide is
removed will get doped.
• This selective removal of oxide is done by a technique
called "Photolithography"
….continued
• In this process the entire surface of the oxide layer is
coated with a photo resist.
• The Photo resist coated substrate is then brought into
contact with a mask (mask is a glass plate with dark and
transparent patterns etched on it).
• The substrate covered with photoresist and mask is
exposed to UV radiation.
• The region of photo resist that is exposed to UV
radiation through the transparent regions of the mask
becomes soft and can be removed easily and the region
of photo resist which is not exposed to UV radiation is
hard and is difficult to remove.
• This is called opening a Window in the oxide.
DIFFUSION
• The next step in the process is to dope the
substrate through the window of the oxide.
Usually, doping is done by diffusion.
• Diffusion is the process by which atoms move
from high concentration region lo low
concentration region through the semiconductor
crystal.
• In fabrication, diffusion is a method by which
impure atoms are introduced into silicon to
change its resistivity.
EPITOXY
• The process of growing another single crystal
on the top of the substrate is known as
"epitaxy".
• The epitaxial layer grown on the substrate is in
the order of fraction of microns to few
micrometers, whereas the thickness of single
crystal substrate is few hundred microns. That
is, much thinner layer is grown compared to
the original bulk substrate.
METALIZATION
• The purpose of metallization is to interconnect
the various components (transistors,
capacitors, etc.,). to from desired , integrated
circuit.
• Metallization involves the deposition of a
metal over the entire surface of the silicon.
• The required interconnection pattern is then
selectively etched.

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VARIOUS IC TECHNOLOGIES

• The most significant component in an integrated circuit or in

• Integrated circuits were first produced using bipolar

• This technology employs N-type MOSFET as its active

• It acts as a diffusion mask permitting selective diffusions into

• It is used for surface passivation which is nothing but creating

• SiO2 acts as the active gate electrode in MOS device structure.

• It is used to isolate one device from another.

• It provides electrical isolation of multilevel metallization used in

• Silicon dioxide (silica) layer is formed on the surface of a silicon

Si+02 = SiO2 (solid)

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