What is Silicon Wafer?
A silicon wafer is a thinly sliced piece of material which is
most commonly used in semiconductor. As semiconductor is widely used in
almost every electronic and digital device/product/equipment, the demand for
silicon wafer always remains high. Manufacturing wafer is the very first step
in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Due to it’s wide use in
semiconductors, silicon wafers are sometimes also called as semicon wafer,
which is short for semiconductor wafers.
For different purposes and different products, different
types of semicon wafers are manufactured. Each type of wafer has its own
function, characteristics, and applications. In this article, we will go
through the various types of silicon wafers and its application.
Types of Silicon Wafers:
Wafers are a key component in semiconductor manufacturing. If
the wafers are of inferior quality or faulty in nature, then the semiconductor unit
will be useless. Thus, utmost care is taken while manufacturing silicon
wafers. Also, each wafer type has its own set of characteristics and thus
it is necessary to use the correct wafer for the correct process. Following are
some of the common types of silicon wafers:
Undoped Silicon Wafer: Undoped silicon wafer is pure silicon wafer, which is also
known as an intrinsic silicon wafer. This type of wafer is in pure,
crystalline form. It is one of the best kinds of silicon wafer to use, as there
is no impurity in its material. In this kind of wafer dopant is not present
throughout the wafer.
Doped Silicon Wafer: In this type of silicon wafer certain amount of
dopant(impurities) is added during the manufacturing process. If the level of
dopant in the silicon is low to moderate, then it is known as extrinsic silicon
wafer. If the dopant level is high, then that kind of wafer is known as
degenerate silicon wafer. The dopants added in the wafer is used to alter the electrical
properties of the wafer. There are basically two types of doped silicon wafers:
· P-type Wafer: In this type of doped wafer, boron is
added for impurity. This type of wafer is mostly used in lithography machines.
· N-type Wafer: In this type of doped wafer,
phosphorous or arsenic is used for doping. N-type wafer is widely used for
manufacturing of advance CMOS devices.
Polished Silicon Wafer: This type of silicon wafer is polished on both the sides to give it the appearance of mirror surface. This type of wafer is pure, flat, and it is superior in quality.
Summary:
Since past few decades the demand for silicon wafers has
grown exponentially. This is because of the surge in demand for electronic
devices and gadgets. Because of this, superior quality of silicon wafers are
developed in the market which is making the competition among the manufacturers
more intense.
