Fundamentals of Silicon Processing and Microelectronic Devices

This short course is designed to give an overview of how microelectronic devices are  fabricated on silicon wafer from ingot formation to an IC chip. If you are part of the semiconductor industry and working in areas such as design, layout, process, test, TCAD, reliability, yield enhancement, metrology or PFA, you need to have an overall picture and understanding of what is happing in the other areas  where it will make your role more effective. Here, you will learn how a silicon wafer looks like and how a generic CMOS process flow can be built on a wafer and how the different process modules can be integrated together. Also the electrical aspects (role of electrons and holes) of the devices are  discussed. The top view (Layout) and the  cross-section of all the process steps are presented. In conclusion the latest on transistor performance including metal gate are discussed.

Currently Scheduled Course Dates

• Jan 28 (Fri), 2011 - Dallas, TX
• March 21 (Mon), 2011- Austin, TX

What you'll learn from this course

• How silicon wafer looks like and how its electrical properties can be modified
• Understand of layouts and photo mask generation
• Learn about each process module (Implant, Diffusion, Thin film deposition, Photolithography, Dry etch, Wet clean) and terminologies
• How the different techniques for failure analysis and metrology are used
• How a generic CMOS process flow is formed for FEOL (STI, wells, gate, LDD,  Sidewall, SD formation, silicide and contact) modules can be integrated
• Understanding of layout and cross section of each process and device
• Latest on transistor performance improvements including the metal gate.

Course Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of Silicon.

Course Overview

• Interaction of Semiconductor Manufacturing Teams
  • Process integration, design, layout, process, test, reliability, PFA, yield enhancement, metrology, TCAD
• Silicon Wafer
  • Ingot, wafer, specifications, resistivity, periodic table
• Energy band diagram
  • solids, conductor, semiconductor, insulator,  types of semiconductors/Junctions, generation, recombination , pn junction
• Electrical Components, Design rules
  • NMOS, PMOS, resistor, capacitor, diode, inverter, SRAM cell, BJT, electrical fuse
• Layout, Floor plan, Photo Mask
  • die layout, scribe, photo mask , phase shift, mask table
• TCAD Process and Device Simulations
  • transistor, wells
• Process Modules
  • Implant, Diffusion, Thin film deposition, Photolithography, Dry etch, Wet clean
• Metrology and PFA tools
  • SEM, TEM, SIMS, AFM, SCM, Scatterometer, Nano probe
• Generic CMOS Process Flow Integration
  • FEOL- STI, wells,  gate,  LDD,  sidewall, source/drain, silicide and contact
• Transistor Improvements
  • High-K, Metal gate, SiGe, SMT, Dual PMD liner

Sample slides

• Few sample slides from the course content.

Who Should Attend

• Circuit designers
• Device and Circuit layout.
• Process engineers
• Test engineers
• Reliability
• TCAD
• PFA engineers
• Yield enhancement
• Metrology
• Packaging
• New college graduates (BS, MS or PhD- EE/Physics/ChemE)

Course Materials

• A hardcopy of the Presentation materials will be included as part of the course.

Instructor's Profile: Dr. Freidoon Mehrad

Freidoon Mehrad has extensive teaching and industry experiences in field of Electronics and Semiconductors. He was a faculty member at Electrical Engineering department at University of Louisiana for 5 years and teaching electronics and device physics before joining TI in 1990.  While at TI as a process integration engineer, he has 19 years of experience with various aspects of  process  integration, silicon processing, process and device simulations and testing. He has worked on 2 nodes of Flash memory and 90nm, 45nm of CMOS devices. Also he was involved in metal gate activities.  During his time at TI, he developed and taught a course  “Fundamental of device physics and CMOS processing”. Presently he is an adjunct faculty and teaching semiconductor devices courses online.Freidoon has 5 publications and holding 45 patents. He earned his Ph.D. is Solid State  Electronics and Device Physics from Louisiana State University. He is a registered professional engineer in state of Texas.