The drive toward new semiconductor technologies is intricately related to market demands for cheaper, smaller, faster and more reliable circuits with lower power consumption. The development of new processing tools and technologies aims at optimizing one or more of these requirements. This goal, however, can only be achieved by a concerted effort between scientists, engineers, technicians and operators in research, development and manufacturing. It is thus important that experts in specific disciplines, such as device and circuit design, understand the principle, capabilities and limitations of tools and processing technologies. It is also important that those working on specific unit processes, such as lithography or hot processes, be familiar with other unit processes used to manufacture the product. This text is written to bridge different disciplines. It presents to engineers and scientists those parts of modern processing technologies that are of greatest importance to the design and manufacture of semiconductor circuits.
The material is presented with sufficient detail to understand and analyze interactions between processing and other semiconductor disciplines, such as design of devices and circuits, their electrical parameters, reliability and yield. This book should serve as a base on which to build an understanding of the manufacture of semiconductor products. It is written in a form to satisfy the needs of engineers and scientists in semiconductor research, development and manufacturing, and to be conveniently used for a one-semester graduate-level course in semiconductor engineering or materials science curriculum.