ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the necessary background of silicon integrated circuit (IC) fabrication technology. It provides readers who desire to learn more about the subject can consult the references listed. Despite that germanium and gallium arsenic are also used to fabricate integrated circuits, silicon is the most popular IC material. The creation of circuit on a silicon wafer involves two major types of operations: doping impurities into selected wafer regions to change electrical properties and depositing patterned materials on the wafer surface. A typical complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor process requires the use of ten or more masks, depending on the number of polysilicon and metal layers needed. Polysilicon is used both as transistor gates and as short distance interconnections. The channel area is defined by the overlapping area of the polysilicon wire and the diffusion. The antenna rules prevent the potential damages induced by the charge collected in the fabrication process on exposed polysilicon and metal features connected to a transistor.
