ABSTRACT
The second part of the past century is known as the silicon age, and the backbone of this era is the precise manufacturing of circuit elements on a single-crystal Si wafer. This particular technology of semiconductor processing is known as planar technology, and it makes the integration of a large number of electronic components on a single wafer possible [1]. The miniaturization of individual devices to make large-scale integrated circuits would not have been possible without the advances in processes, techniques, and equipment. The availability of cheap electronics today is a testimony to the advances that have taken place over the past 50 years. Advances in microelectronic device fabrication have led to new elds such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) [2]. In microelectronic circuits, there is no physical displacement between components, while MEMS processing is done to
allow physical displacement of components. To a very large extent, today’s nanofabrication technology also has its lineage in microelectronics fabrication as many tools developed to work at the microrange have been improved and enhanced to provide nanolevel observation and manipulation.
