How are Microchips Made? 🖥️🛠️ CPU Manufacturing Process Steps

Summary

This video script offers an in-depth exploration of microchip manufacturing, detailing the complex process of creating billions of transistors on a tiny chip. It delves into the semiconductor fabrication plant's operations, where silicon wafers undergo around a thousand processes over three months. The script explains the use of high-tech tools, the importance of cleanrooms, and the meticulous steps involved in building layers of metal interconnects and transistors. It also touches on the post-manufacturing testing and categorization of CPUs, providing a comprehensive look at the technology behind our modern devices.

Takeaways

• 📱 A single smartphone can contain 62 microchips with a total of 90 billion transistors, showcasing the high density of modern technology.
• 🏭 Microchips are manufactured in semiconductor fabrication plants, which are vast facilities with clean rooms spanning areas equivalent to 8 football fields.
• 💰 The machines in these plants are extremely expensive, ranging from a few million to 170 million dollars each, reflecting the high cost of microchip production.
• ⚙️ The production process involves around a thousand steps over a 3-month period, highlighting the complexity and time-consuming nature of microchip manufacturing.
• 🔬 Each silicon wafer can be covered in hundreds of CPU chips, each containing 26 billion transistors, indicating the scale of integration in modern chips.
• 🔍 The transistors are incredibly small, with FinFETs having dimensions of 36 by 6 by 52 nanometers, emphasizing the nanoscopic precision required.
• 🔗 The manufacturing process includes 80 different layers of patterns, each requiring a separate photomask, which are costly and crucial for the design transfer.
• 🛠️ There are six main groups of semiconductor tools: mask layer creation, material addition, material removal, material modification, wafer cleaning, and wafer inspection.
• 🔬 Ion implanters are used to modify the silicon by adding dopants to create P and N regions for transistors, and they are a key part of the front-end manufacturing process.
• 🧼 Cleaning and inspection steps are frequent to ensure the wafer's cleanliness and to check for defects, which is critical for the quality of the final product.
• 📈 The video script took over 1300 hours to create, demonstrating the extensive effort behind producing educational content on complex topics like microchip fabrication.

Q & A

How many microchips are inside the smartphone mentioned in the script?

There are 62 microchips inside the smartphone.

What is the total number of transistors contained in the microchips of the smartphone?

The microchips contain a total of 90 billion transistors.

What is the size of a clean room in a semiconductor fabrication plant as described in the script?

The clean room in a semiconductor fabrication plant spans the area of 8 football fields.

How much does a single machine in the semiconductor fabrication plant cost?

The cost of a single machine in the semiconductor fabrication plant ranges from a few million to 170 million dollars.

How many processes does a silicon wafer undergo in the microchip manufacturing process?

A silicon wafer undergoes around a thousand processes in the microchip manufacturing process.

What is the number of CPU chips that can fit on a 300-millimeter silicon wafer?

A 300-millimeter silicon wafer can fit 230 CPU chips.

How many billions of transistors does each CPU chip contain?

Each CPU chip contains 26 billion transistors.

How many nanometers are the channel dimensions of the FinFETs transistors mentioned in the script?

The channel dimensions of the FinFETs transistors are 36 by 6 by 52 nanometers.

What is the total number of metal layers of wires in the CPU described in the script?

There are a total of 17 metal layers of wires in the CPU.

How many process steps are there in the sequence to build all the 80 layers of the die?

To build all the 80 layers of the die, there are 940 process steps.

What is the purpose of the cleaning and inspection steps in the microchip manufacturing process?

The purpose of the cleaning and inspection steps in the microchip manufacturing process is to remove any stray particles that may have fallen onto the wafer and to ensure that each of the processes is being executed with nanometer-level precision.

Outlines

00:00

📱 Microchip Manufacturing Overview

This paragraph introduces the complexity and scale of microchip manufacturing. It reveals that a single smartphone can contain 62 microchips with a total of 90 billion transistors. The manufacturing process occurs in a semiconductor fabrication plant, which is a vast, clean environment filled with expensive machinery. The process involves around a thousand steps over a 3-month period, resulting in silicon wafers covered in hundreds of CPU chips, each with billions of transistors. The video promises to explore this intricate process, including the nanoscopic transistors and the complex 3D wiring.

05:06

🔍 Inside the Microchip Factory

The second paragraph delves into the analogy of microchip manufacturing to baking an 80-layer cake with precise requirements. It outlines the steps to create a single layer of an integrated circuit, starting with the deposition of insulating silicon dioxide and photoresist, followed by patterning with UV light and etching. The paragraph emphasizes the complexity and precision required, with 940 steps repeated to build all layers. It also introduces the semiconductor fabrication plant's operations, including the transportation of silicon wafers and the use of various tools, each performing a specific process step.

10:08

🛠️ Semiconductor Tools and Their Functions

This paragraph discusses the different types of semiconductor tools used in the fabrication process, categorized by their functions. It explains the role of each tool group, such as creating mask layers, adding or removing materials, modifying the silicon, cleaning the wafers, and inspecting for defects. The paragraph provides a detailed look at the photolithography tool, which is crucial for transferring designs onto the wafer. It also touches on the variety of deposition tools and their role in adding materials to the wafer based on the mask layer.

15:11

🔬 Detailed Process of Wafer Processing

The fourth paragraph focuses on the detailed process of how semiconductor tools process the wafer to create a single metal interconnect layer. It describes the steps of insulating layer deposition, photoresist application, photolithography, etching, and chemical mechanical planarization (CMP). The paragraph also highlights the importance of cleaning and inspection steps to ensure the quality of the integrated circuit. Additionally, it mentions the complexity of fabricating FinFET transistors and the need for additional steps not covered in the summary.

20:17

🌟 Behind the Scenes of Microchip Manufacturing

This paragraph provides insight into the efforts behind creating the video, including the extensive research, modeling, scripting, and animation that took over 1300 hours. It emphasizes the secrecy surrounding the semiconductor industry's processes and tools. The paragraph also discusses the additional steps in microchip manufacturing, such as silicon wafer production and post-fabrication testing. It concludes with a call to action for viewers to support the creators through likes, subscriptions, and Patreon, and mentions the sponsor, Brilliant.org, which offers educational resources on various technology topics.

25:24

🎓 Learning Resources and Future Content

The final paragraph promotes Brilliant.org as a learning resource for complex technology concepts, including AI and large language models. It mentions a specific course on technology that covers topics like GPS, computer memory, and recommendation algorithms. The paragraph also discusses the creators' plans for future videos on microchip fabrication, transistor physics, GPUs, and CPU architecture. It expresses gratitude to supporters and sponsors and encourages viewers to subscribe for updates on new content.

Keywords

💡Microchips

Microchips are tiny semiconductor devices that serve as the building blocks for modern electronic systems. They contain billions of transistors and are integral to the functionality of devices like smartphones and computers. In the video, microchips are highlighted as the cornerstone of all technology, with a focus on their manufacturing process involving nanoscopic transistors and complex 3D wire mazes.

💡Transistors

Transistors are semiconductor devices that amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power. They are the fundamental building blocks of microchips, with billions of them being manufactured into a microchip. The video script describes the nanoscopic size of these transistors and their arrangement in layers within the microchip.

💡Semiconductor Fabrication Plant

A semiconductor fabrication plant, or 'fab', is a highly controlled environment where microchips are manufactured. These plants house sophisticated machinery and processes to create the intricate structures of microchips. The script mentions a clean room the size of 8 football fields, filled with expensive machines, that's part of such a plant.

💡Clean Room

A clean room is a controlled environment designed to reduce the level of environmental pollutants such as dust, airborne microbes, aerosol particles, and chemical vapors. In the context of the video, the clean room in a semiconductor fabrication plant is crucial for the production of microchips, where silicon wafers undergo numerous processes.

💡Silicon Wafers

Silicon wafers are thin slices of single-crystal silicon used as the substrate, or base, for microchips. The script describes how silicon wafers travel through various machines in the fabrication plant, undergoing a series of processes to become populated with CPU chips.

💡Integrated Circuit

An integrated circuit (IC) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or 'chip') of semiconductor material, normally silicon. The video explains how integrated circuits are formed by cutting out the circuit from the wafer after it has been processed with billions of transistors and layers of wires.

💡Photolithography

Photolithography is a process used in microchip fabrication to transfer a pattern from a photomask to a light-sensitive chemical medium, which then etches the pattern into the material. The video script details how photolithography is used to create the nanoscopic patterns on the wafer that form the transistors and wires.

💡FinFET

FinFET is a type of transistor architecture that allows for better control of current and is used in modern microchips to achieve higher performance and energy efficiency. The script provides a size comparison of FinFET transistors to emphasize their minuscule scale.

💡Ion Implantation

Ion implantation is a process used in semiconductor manufacturing to introduce dopant impurities into a wafer to change its electrical properties. The video explains that ion implanters are used to create the P and N regions required to form the transistors themselves.

💡Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP)

CMP is a process used to achieve a flat surface on semiconductor wafers by polishing the wafer with a chemical slurry on a rotating pad. The script mentions CMP as a crucial step in the process to ensure that each layer of the microchip is perfectly flat before adding the next layer.

💡Metrology Tools

Metrology tools are used in semiconductor manufacturing to inspect and measure the physical properties of the wafer and its layers. The video script describes how these tools are essential for ensuring the quality and accuracy of the microchip fabrication process, as they detect defects and verify the precision of each step.

Highlights

A smartphone contains 62 microchips with a total of 90 billion transistors.

Microchips are manufactured in semiconductor fabrication plants with clean rooms spanning the area of 8 football fields.

Silicon wafers undergo around a thousand processes over a 3-month period in the fabrication process.

Each silicon wafer ends up covered in hundreds of CPU chips, each containing 26 billion transistors.

The nanoscopic transistors and layers of wires form an integrated circuit that is cut, tested, and packaged for use in computers.

A CPU chip has 24 cores, a memory controller, a graphics processor, and other sections, with 44,000 transistors in a single multiply block.

Transistors are incredibly small, with FinFETs having channel dimensions of 36 by 6 by 52 nanometers.

The manufacturing process is compared to baking an 80-layer cake with unique shapes and 940 steps, taking 3 months to complete.

A single layer of the integrated circuit involves depositing insulating silicon dioxide, applying photoresist, and using UV light for patterning.

The semiconductor fabrication plant uses a variety of machines, each costing between a few million to 170 million dollars.

Silicon wafers are transported in a cleanroom using a front opening universal pod (foup) and an overhead transport system.

The fabrication plant has 435 semiconductor tools that can produce 50,000 wafers or 11.5 million CPUs a month.

Semiconductor tools are categorized into six groups: making the mask layer, adding material, removing material, modifying the material, cleaning the wafer, and inspecting the wafer.

Photolithography tools use UV light and photomasks to transfer designs onto wafers for nanoscopic patterning.

Deposition tools add materials like metals, insulators, and crystalline layers of silicon onto the wafer using a mask layer.

Etching and chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) are used to remove material and ensure a flat wafer surface for additional layers.

Ion implanters modify the silicon by bombarding it with elements like phosphor or boron to form the transistors.

Wafer washers clean the wafer to remove contaminants, and metrology tools inspect for defects with nanometer-level resolution.

The manufacturing process of a single metal interconnect layer involves multiple steps, including deposition, etching, and planarization.

The video's creation took over 1300 hours of research, modeling, scripting, and animation to provide detailed insights into microchip manufacturing.

The video is sponsored by Brilliant.org, which offers interactive learning modules on various scientific and technological topics.

Transcripts

Inside this smartphone are 62 microchips  containing a total of 90 billion transistors.  

These microchips are incredibly powerful and  the cornerstone of all technology, but how are  

billions of nanoscopic transistors manufactured  into a microchip the size of a tiny ant? 

Well, all these microchips were manufactured in  a semiconductor fabrication plant like this one.  

Inside it is a clean room which spans the area of  8 football fields and is filled with hundreds of  

machines ranging in size from that of a van to  that of a city bus and costing anywhere between  

a few million and 170 million dollars. Within  this microchip factory, silicon wafers travel  

from machine to machine and undergo around a  thousand processes over a 3-month period. And,  

by the end of production, each silicon wafer  will be covered in hundreds of CPU chips  

each containing 26 billion transistors. When we zoom in we can see the nanoscopic  

transistors at the bottom and over  a dozen layers of wires above. This  

integrated circuit is then cut out from  the wafer, tested, and packaged so that  

it can be installed into your desktop computer. In this video we’re going to explore the entire  

microchip manufacturing process and show  you how billions of nanoscopic transistors  

and an impossibly complex 3D maze of wires  are manufactured in one of the world’s most  

technologically advanced microchip factories.  It’s an incredibly complicated process,  

so stick around and let’s jump right in! A portion  of this video is sponsored by Brilliant.org. 

There are two sides to understanding how microchip  manufacturing works. The first is the sequence of  

steps and processes needed to build the nanoscopic  transistors and the labyrinth of wires. Whereas  

the second is how the semiconductor fab and  multimillion dollar equipment on the cleanroom  

floor work, and we’ll be flipping between  these two sides to get a complete picture. 

Let’s start by opening up this desktop computer,  focusing on the CPU and taking a look at what’s  

inside. Here we have an integrated circuit, or  die, which we’ll refer to as a chip. This chip  

has 24 cores, a memory controller, a graphics  processor, and many other sections. Within one  

of the cores, we can see its block diagram  and the various elements. Zooming in on  

this multiply block, we find a layout of 44  thousand transistors that physically execute  

32-bit multiplication and constitute just  point zero zero zero one seven percent of the  

overall 26 billion transistors in the CPU. Zooming in even further, we see layers of  

metal wires, or interconnects, and at the very  bottom are the transistors that form the basic  

logic gates. Note that these layers of metal  interconnects aren’t floating, but rather,  

the empty space that you see is filled with  insulating materials, thus providing structure,  

and preventing the metal wire layers from  touching. Furthermore, here we’re only showing  

the transistors at the bottom and five layers of  metal interconnects with vias traveling vertically  

between the layers. In actuality there are a  total of 17 metal layers of wires in the CPU,  

and each successive set of levels uses larger  and larger interconnects. At the bottom are  

local interconnects that move data around this  32 bit multiply circuit. In the middle are  

intermediate interconnects that move data around  the core, and at the top are global interconnects  

that move data around the entire CPU. You might be wondering how small are  

these transistors? Zooming in again and past  the interconnect layers we find FinFets,  

which are transistors whose channel dimensions  are 36 by 6 by 52 nanometers with a transistor  

to transistor pitch of 57 nanometers. Clearly  the transistors are incredibly small. Here’s  

a mitochondria, a dust particle, and  a human hair for size comparisons. 

Now that you have a sense of what the transistors  and labyrinth of metal interconnects look like,  

let’s explore how they’re manufactured. We’ll begin with an analogy. Imagine baking  

a cake that’s 80 layers tall, with each layer cut  to a unique shape. To make this cake there are  

940 steps in the recipe, which takes 3 months  to complete and includes hundreds of exotic  

ingredients. And, if any measurement, baking  time, or temperature is more than one percent off,  

then the cake is entirely ruined. That’s  kind of what it’s like to make a microchip,  

but microchips are even more complicated. Let’s look at a single layer of this integrated  

circuit and run through a simplified  set of steps used to build it. To start,  

a layer of insulating silicon dioxide is deposited  on top of the wafer and then a layer of light  

sensitive photoresist is spread across the top.  Next, using UV Light and a stencil, a pattern is  

applied to the photoresist. Solvents then are  used to remove the areas hit by the UV light,  

thus creating a patterned mask layer. Using the  mask, the revealed silicon dioxide is etched away  

down to the previous layer. Next the mask layer is  removed, and a layer of copper is added to cover  

the wafer and fill in the areas that were just  etched away. Finally, the surface is ground down  

and leveled off to reveal the copper and insulator  patterns. And thus, a single layer is completed. 

In order to build the next layer, which is  a vertical set of metal vias, we repeat the  

same set of steps, but use a different pattern  for the photomask. Since these layers are all  

built using the same set of steps it’s more  effective to visualize the steps as a circle  

like a clock. To build all the 80 layers of the  die, this sequence is repeated over and over,  

resulting in 940 steps. One important note is  that the FinFet transistors at the bottom are  

even more complicated than the metal wires, and  thus additional steps are needed to fabricate  

them. Furthermore, cleaning the wafer to wash away  dust particles that may have landed on the wafer,  

as well as inspecting the wafer to make  sure everything is being built properly,  

happens frequently and these steps need to  be added to the circle. A different tool is  

used to complete each of these process steps. . Now that we have an understanding of the steps,  

let’s take a look at this semiconductor  fabrication plant. This CPU is manufactured  

on a 300-millimeter silicon wafer which can  fit 230 CPU chips. In contrast DRAM chips are  

considerably smaller and thus 952 of them can fit  on a wafer. These silicon wafers are carried in  

stacks of 25 using a container called a front  opening universal pod, or foup. This sealed  

plastic wafer carrier is transported around the  cleanroom floor using an overhead transport system  

which lowers the foup onto the tool’s landing pad.  Inside the tool, robotic arms transport the wafer  

through vacuum load locks and to different  process chambers where materials are added,  

removed, or processed in ways that we’ll explore  later. The wafers are then returned to the foup,  

resealed inside, lifted up to the overhead  transport system, and carried to and dropped  

onto the next tool, where the next step in the  process is completed. To build the entire chip  

composed of 80 different layers it takes 3 months  of traveling from tool to tool where at each  

stop one of the 940 process steps is completed. In order to increase the microchip mass production  

capabilities of a semiconductor fabrication  plant or fab, typically there are dozens of the  

same semiconductor tools organized in rows that  perform the same process. On the cleanroom floor  

there are a total of 435 semiconductor tools  resulting in the fab’s production capacity of  

50,000 wafers or 11.5 million CPUs a month. These tools have rather complicated names,  

so we’ll start by categorizing them according  to their functionality. There are 6 groups:  

making the mask layer, adding material,  removing material, modifying the material,  

cleaning the wafer, and finally inspecting  the wafer. We’ve color coded the different  

functional groups to the various tools and  process steps to help you not get lost. 

Let’s next look at each of these semiconductor  tools and see how they process the wafer in  

various ways. We’ll start with the ones that are  used to make the mask layer or the nanoscopic  

stencil on the wafer. These tools include the  photoresist spin coater, photolithography tool,  

developer and photoresist stripper. First the  photoresist spin coater applies a light-sensitive  

layer to the surface of the wafer and sends  it through a soft bake where the wafer is  

heated in order to evaporate the solvent from  the photoresist. Next the wafer goes to the  

lithography tool which shines UV light through a  stencil, which is technically called a photomask.  

The light passes through the stencil and is then  demagnified or shrunk down to produce a nanoscopic  

pattern on the wafer. Wherever the light from  the stencil touches the wafer, the photoresist is  

weakened. The wafer then goes to the developer  and the weakened photoresist is washed away,  

leaving only the patterned nanoscopic stencil on  the wafer. The wafer is then sent through a hard  

bake to harden the remaining photoresist.  Next the wafer travels to other tools to  

undergo processing, and once these processes  are completed the wafer goes to a photoresist  

stripper which uses solvents to dissolve and  remove the photoresist mask layer. And that’s  

how a mask layer is formed and then removed. The photolithography tool is one of the most  

important, so let’s take a look at it. Inside  is a UV light source, a set of lenses to  

focus the light, a photomask which contains the  stencil, or design of the layer to be patterned,  

and a wafer carrier. The photomask is 6 by 6  inches, and, based on the dimensions of the CPU,  

can fit 2 copies of a single layer of  the CPU design. The purpose of using  

a photomask with these crazy optics is because  it’s a reliable way to copy and paste a design  

for billions of nanoscopic transistors and wires  onto 230 identical CPUs on a single wafer in a  

few minutes. After the light passes through the  photomask, the UV light goes to more lenses in  

order to shrink down the pattern by a factor of  4 and print a single layer of the design onto the  

photoresist. The wafer carrier steps from position  to position, printing the photomask image at each  

stop, until all 230 chips are patterned. Let’s clarify one detail. In our previous  

examples, we talked a lot about this CPU having 80  layers. Specifically, what we were referring to is  

the number of photomasks and mask layers used to  create all the different layers of patterns on  

the wafer. Therefore, one complete CPU chip  uses 80 different photomasks, each costing  

300,000 dollars. With only one mask layer being  patterned at a time, this CPU chip will undergo 80  

separate visits to the lithography tool. We could  spend another hour talking about photolithography  

but let’s move onto the next category of tools. Deposition tools are used to add or deposit  

material onto the wafer. A lot of times we  use the mask layer from the photolithography  

step to add materials to the areas uncovered  by the mask layer, kind of like spray painting  

through a stencil. Due to the wide range of  elements and compounds used to create the layers,  

deposition tools have a wide range of variations  with complicated names and acronyms for each  

variant. But essentially there are 3 key groups  of materials that are added or deposited onto  

the wafer: metals such as copper or tantalum,  insulators which are typically called oxides,  

and crystalline layers of silicon. Each group of  different materials uses different physics and  

chemistry principles to deposit the material  on the wafer and therefore has a different  

technical name for the tool that deposits the  material. Deposition tools typically have a  

central wafer handling chamber, with the various  chambers attached to the edges, each one dedicated  

to adding just a single element or compound. The next category of machines do the opposite,  

which is to remove material. There are 2  key methods. The first is etching. Etchers  

use either corrosive chemicals or high energy  plasmas to react with and remove materials from  

the surface of the wafer. They are typically used  with the mask layer stencil in order to remove the  

material exposed by the mask, thus creating a hole  that can be later filled by a deposition tool. 

The second method to remove material is CMP,  which is chemical mechanical planarization. CMP  

applies slurry and uses abrasive pads to grind  and polish away the top surface of the wafer,  

making it perfectly flat. CMP levels off the top  layers of the wafer and is typically used as the  

last step in a cycle of processes in order to  prepare the wafer for another layer to be added. 

The fourth category are tools that modify the  silicon and are called ion implanters. These tools  

use the photomask stencil to bombard the unmasked  regions with phosphor, boron, or other elements  

in order to make the P and the N regions required  to form the transistors themselves. Therefore, ion  

implanters are only used in the front end of line.  You might think that this is adding material.  

However, ion implanters only add around one atom  of phosphor or boron for every 10,000 atoms of  

silicon. Additionally, while other machines spray  paint a layer on top of the wafer, ion implanters  

hurl atoms deep into the silicon lattice, kind  of like a cannon launching a baseball 6 feet into  

a concrete wall. This process typically damages  the silicon lattice, which is why the following  

step is to repair the silicon by heating the  wafer using a separate tool called an annealer. 

The fifth category of tools are used to clean  and remove any contaminants or particles from the  

wafer. These wafer washers use ultra-pure water to  clean the wafer and then dry it with nitrogen or  

hot isopropyl alcohol. Cleaning the wafer happens  rather frequently in order to remove any stray  

particles that may have fallen onto the wafer. And finally, sixth are tools that inspect the  

transistors and metal layers for defects and  are called metrology tools. A common metrology  

tool uses a scanning electron microscope with  nanometer-level resolution to take pictures of the  

top surface of the wafer and determine if there  are defects such as improperly patterned layers  

or particles on the surface. When fabricating  an integrated circuit that takes 3 months to  

complete, it’s important to repeatedly monitor the  progress and make sure that each of the processes  

is being executed with nanometer-level precision. Now that we’ve covered each of the categories,  

here are the color coded process steps  along with the layout of the tools in the  

semiconductor fabrication plant. Let’s run  through the complete set of steps used to  

manufacture a single metal interconnect layer. First a layer of insulating silicon dioxide is  

deposited onto the wafer. Next photoresist is  spread across the surface and the wafer is sent  

through a soft bake to remove the solvent. The  wafer then travels to the photolithography tool  

where the design from the photomask is transferred  to each of the chips on the wafer by weakening  

the areas of photoresist hit by the light. The  wafer next goes to the developer to wash away  

the sections that were hit by the light from the  lithography tool and then through a hard bake to  

harden the remaining photoresist. With the mask  layer built, the wafer goes to an etching tool,  

where a plasma etcher removes a vertical column  through the exposed silicon dioxide until it  

reaches the previous layer’s metal vias. Next the  wafer is sent to a photoresist stripper where the  

mask layer is removed. The wafer then travels  to a physical vapor deposition tool where a  

sequence of metals fills in the exposed pattern  and coats the wafer in metal. Finally the wafer  

is sent to a chemical mechanical planarization  tool where the metal is ground down so that all  

that remains is a flat layer of insulating silicon  dioxide and conductive copper interconnects that  

match the pattern from the photomask. A single  metal layer is now completed, and the wafer is  

ready for the next cycle to begin where insulating  silicon dioxide and the vias will be added. Note  

that cleaning and wafer metrology or inspection  steps occur in between many of these other  

steps. Furthermore, the process steps to make the  transistors are less straightforward and utilize  

the ion implanter, and thus we’ll cover them in a  separate video on transistor physics and design. 

These steps are for building the  integrated circuit on the wafer, however,  

there are additional steps in manufacturing a  microchip which we’ll explore in a little bit. 

But before we get there, one important thing  to note is that the semiconductor industry  

is incredibly secretive regarding the exact tool  layout and the process steps and recipes used to  

make the transistors. We wanted to make the best  video on how microchips are made and it took us  

180 hours of scouring the internet and textbooks  for information and reference images and, using  

what we found, we spent 205 hours modeling each  of these tools, the many layers of the integrated  

circuit, and the semiconductor fab. Furthermore,  writing the script took about 100 hours, and then  

animating all these visuals took more than 825  hours. As a result, this video took over 1300  

hours to make, and it’s entirely free to watch.  We want to make more videos like this one where we  

explore computer architecture and how transistors  work, and we can’t do it without your help. The  

best way you can help is by taking a few seconds  to scroll down, write a comment below, like this  

video, subscribe if you haven’t already and then  share this video on social media or send it to a  

friend or colleague. Truly, just a few seconds  of your time helps far more than you think.  

Additionally, we have a Patreon page where  we’ll be releasing behind the scenes footage  

of our work and updates for upcoming  videos. If you find what we do useful,  

we would appreciate any support. Thank you. So then, what are the additional steps in  

manufacturing a microchip? Before  chip manufacturing at the fab,  

we first have to manufacture the silicon  wafers by refining quartzite into pure silicon,  

and then growing a monocrystalline ingot  and cutting it into wafers. For reference,  

these 300-millimeter wafers are around  three-quarters of a millimeter thick,  

they have a barcode on the side and a small  notch in them to indicate the direction of the  

crystal lattice. Furthermore, these wafers are  incredibly delicate, and shatter into hundreds  

of shards when broken. A single wafer costs  around a hundred dollars, but after being  

populated with CPUs it’s worth closer to a hundred  thousand dollars, making it quite literally ten  

times more valuable than its weight in gold. Moving onto the steps after chip manufacturing.  

The completed wafer is sent to a separate building  where each of the CPUs undergoes rigorous testing  

to figure out if it works as intended. If a CPU  works, that’s great. But frequently a particle  

or photomask defect has damaged a section of  the integrated circuit, rendering that section  

defective. These semi-functional circuits are then  categorized, or binned, based on what still works.  

These Intel Thirteenth Gen processors are sold as  an i9, i7, i5, or i3, depending on how many cores  

are functional with different product lines of  CPUs whose on-board integrated graphics sections  

are defective. These wafers are transported  to another building where the chips are cut  

out using a laser, flipped over, and placed on an  interposer which distributes the connection points  

to a printed circuit board while a protective  heat conductive cover is placed on the back  

side. The printed circuit board holds the landing  grid array that interfaces with the motherboard  

as well as various electrical components. Next  an integrated heat spreader is mounted on top,  

and the entire assembly is tested one last time  before being packaged for sale. Finally, the CPU  

is now ready to be mounted onto the motherboard  and installed into your desktop computer. 

It’s important to understand that chip  manufacturing requires an incredible  

amount of science and engineering and there’s a  free and easy way to learn the basic principles  

inside each of these complex tools and that’s with  this video’s sponsor, Brilliant.org! Brilliant  

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such as those used by YouTube work. If  you’re looking to advance your career,  

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is offering a free 30-day trial with access to  all their thousands of lessons. Additionally,  

Brilliant is offering 20% off an  annual subscription. Just go to  

brilliant.org/brancheducation. The  link is in the description below. 

Microchip Fabrication is a massive topic, and  thus, we have two more equally complex videos  

that we’re working on. The first will be an  in-depth 3D animated factory tour and the  

second will explore transistor physics, FinFets,  and the next generation of transistors. We’re  

also working on a series of videos on GPUs and a  separate one on CPU architecture so make sure to  

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you can find the links in the description below. This is Branch Education, and we create 3D  

animations that dive deeply into the technology  that drives our modern world. Watch another Branch  

video by clicking one of these cards or click  here to subscribe. Thanks for watching to the end!