You are about to experience a
fascinating journey
through the cleanrooms of the
semiconductor industry.
See a microprocessor in the making at one
of AMD's chip factories.
Let our experts walk you through the
nano cosmos,
the world of the atom.
A world that normally remains hidden from our
eyes.
In the beginning is the circuit
diagram.
At design centers all around the globe,
experts collaborate to design the brains
behind super computers and servers, high-end notebooks and PCs.
The next step is manufacturing.
The disc substrates for the microchips are
made from quartz sand
and are called silicon wafers.
To make these wafers
a huge mono crystal is drawn from
purified silicon melt.
The result
is a perfect silicon lattice into which
the transistors will later be fitted.
However, impurities pose a threat to these
flawless silicon crystals.
Our AMD manufacturing teams must
therefore take extensive precautions
every time they enter our dust free
cleanrooms.
The result,
our wafers are fabricated in an
environment that is more than one
hundred thousand times cleaner than an
operating theater.
Completely free of dust, the silicon discs
arrive at the cleanroom.
Here,
25 wafers are packed into each hermetically sealed container and sent off
on a journey that will take them through
hundreds of manufacturing steps.
Photo lithographic techniques transfer
the circuit structures to the wafers,
rather like slide projection.
The key to this whole process is a solid
mastery of light.
The silicon disc is spin coated with a
photosensitive resist.
UV light transfers the circuit
structures imprinted on a mask to the wafer.
The exposed parts of the resist are soluble
and are removed by developing fluid.
The transferred structures can now be
used as a template.
The unprotected parts of the wafer
surface are etched away.
The structures of billions of small
current switches are generated on
each wafer;
tiny transistors.
From the photo lithographic stage,
wafers move on to the ion implantation
where the electrical properties of the
transistors will be established.
Here the engineers make good use of one
of silicon's most unique properties.
Silicon is a semiconductor,
which means that it's conductivity can
change via high-precision emplacement of
so-called dopant atoms.
Dopant atoms are shot into the silicon
structures.
Initially,
these atoms are distributed unevenly in
the silicon lattice.
At high temperatures the dopant atoms
become flexible
and take over a fixed position in the
atomic structure.
The complexity of manufacturing tiny
transistors
requires a clean room as big as two
soccer fields.
While our people monitor the complex
processes,
automated manufacturing itself always
takes place within hermetically sealed
production lines.
Copper dominates the next process.
Finest interconnect wires link up
billions of separate transistors to form
integrated circuits.
Before that can happen, however,
cleaning is essential for the wafers as
particles lurk at every stage in the
manufacturing process.
Before the copper is poured into the
trenches for the interconnects
a barrier layer is applied.
It helps to prevent short circuits and
guarantees reliability.
The trenches are then filled with copper.
Finally,
the excess copper is ground down to the
edges of the trenches.
This insulates each interconnect from
the others.
A microchip made of copper wiring,
established AMD as the first company
in the world to adopt copper in volume production,
a foundation for state of the art
multi-core processors
that AMD is introducing today in all product areas.
To keep us on the leading edge of the
world's chip makers,
electron microscopes constantly monitor
every step of manufacturing,
down to the atomic structures of each
individual transistor.
In two months
the wafer
is ready.
Huge integrated circuits
consisting of conductors with the length
of many kilometers
link up one hundred billion transistors
on numerous levels.
And that,
in a space no larger than a fingernail.
AMD in Dresden,
one of the most advanced chip factories
on earth
and a testing ground for the very latest
microelectronic innovations from around
the globe.
Germany's
high-tech capital.
All that remains now is the last
production step:
the packaging.
Tin-silver pellets are applied to the
wafers,
linking the chips to the frame.
With the finest saw blades,
the microprocessors are cut from the
wafers
then bonded to the frames
and sealed with a cover.
