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4.10 Yield

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This module covers yield of integrated circuit production.

Perhaps a word about feature size, chip size and yield would be in order. We saw earlier that circuits arerepeated many times across a wafer's surface during the photolithographic stage. Although great care is exercised intrying to prevent defects from becoming part of a wafer surface (clean rooms, "bunny" suits, ultra-pure chemicals etc.) eachwafer that goes through a fab will end up with some "killer" defects distributed across the wafer surface .

A wafer with defects

Imagine that we try to manufacture some chips of a certain size. A glance at shows that we would have 15 of 21 good chips, for a yield of about 71%. Suppose we could,through improved technology, perform a 30% "shrink" on the circuit - i.e. make its dimensions 30% smaller. Now, as shows, we get 40 good chips/wafer instead of 15 (and they cost no more to produce) andour yield has gone to 40 out of 46 or 87%. We will be rich! Or at least we won't go out of business!

Six killed circuits

Lots more good ones

Yield, reliability and manufacturability are all critical issues in the semiconductor industry. The business is highlycompetitive, and the technology keeps moving rapidly. It is an exciting and challenging field, one which demands the very best,but which rewards someone who is willing to never stop thinking and to bring forth the very best creative solutions to hardproblems.
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Source:  OpenStax, Introduction to physical electronics. OpenStax CNX. Sep 17, 2007 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10114/1.4
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