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If you ask everyone: what does a processor consist of? You cannot even imagine that this is actually most inconspicuous sand.

Let me imagine today how a processor worth thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan is made from a pile of sand.

Sand: Silicon is second most abundant element in earth's crust, and deoxygenated sand (especially quartz) contains up to 25% silicon in form of silicon dioxide (SiO2), which is also basis of semiconductor industry.

Silicon melting: 12"/300mm wafer level. Silicon that can be used in production of semiconductors is obtained by multi-stage purification. The scientific name is electronic grade silicon (EGS), and there is no more than one impurity atom for every million silicon atoms. This picture shows how to get large crystals by refining and smelting silicon, and end result is silicon ingots (Ingot).

Cutting out a silicon ingot. One silicon wafer cut horizontally into a circle, which we often refer to as a wafer. The diced waffles are polished to an almost flawless surface that even acts as a mirror.

Photo Resist: The blue part in picture is a liquid photoresist that is poured as plate rotates, similar to that used to make traditional films. The rotation of plate allows photoresist to be applied very thinly and very flat.

The photoresist layer is then exposed to ultraviolet light through a mask to make it soluble. The mask is printed with a pre-designed circuit pattern, and UV light illuminates photoresist layer through it, forming each layer of circuit pattern. microprocessor.

One wafer can cut hundreds of processors. Transistors are equivalent to switches that control direction of current. About 30 million processors can be placed on one needle.

Photoresist dissolution, etching, photoresist removal

Ion implantation: in a vacuum system, a solid material is irradiated (implanted) with accelerated ions of atoms to be doped, thereby forming a special implanted layer in implantation area and changing silicon conductivity in these areas. The speed of ion flow accelerated by an electric field can exceed 300,000 kilometers per hour.

Photoresist removal: after ion implantation is completed, photoresist is also removed, and implanted area (green part) is also doped, implanted with various atoms. Note that green color is now different than before.

Transistor ready. At moment, transistor is almost ready. Three holes are etched into dielectric (magenta) and filled with copper for connection to other transistors.

Electroplating. A layer of copper sulfate is applied to plate, which precipitates copper ions on transistors. Copper ions move from positive pole (anode) to the negative pole (cathode).

Copper layer: After electroplating is completed, copper ions are deposited on surface of wafer, forming a thin layer of copper.

Polishing: sand off excess copper, i.e. polish surface of plate.

Metal layer. Forms a composite metal connection layer between different transistors. The specific arrangement depends on various functionality required by respective processor.

Waffle test: Core level, about 10mm/0.5in. The image shows portion of wafer undergoing first functional test, using a reference circuit to compare with each chip.

Cutting: plate level, 300 mm/12 in. The plate is cut into parts, and each part is core (matrix) of processor.

Reject defective kernels: Wafer level. Faulty cores found during testing are discarded, leaving intact cores ready for next step.

One core: core level. One core cut from plate shown here is a Core i7 core.

Package: Packing level, 20 mm/1 in. Substrate (substrate), core and heatsink stacked together to form processor we see. The substrate (green) acts as a base and provides electrical and mechanical interface for processor core to interact with rest of PC system. The heatsink (silver) is responsible for dissipating heat from core.

Don't waste it when you see sand in future.