All I could think about while reading this was minecraft...
From sand to processor, or how a CPU is made
21–25 of 25 posts
Re: From sand to processor, or how a CPU is made
#22You can avoid the blogspam and get the content directly from Intel here[1] since it appears every bit of this content was just stolen directly from Intel. [1] http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-2476
Of course, all you have to do is read their entire blog and find from tons of liks exactly what you want to know. Then collect it to one place.
Any information could be find in the web but how simple it would be? So, here just enjoy yourself that someone has done it for you.
Re: From sand to processor, or how a CPU is made
#23I'd love to know where that sand comes from. A professor in college once told us that not just any sand works for this process, and many wars have been fueled by the need to secure sources of that particular sand in Africa. Couldn't find any references, though...
Er, are you sure you're not thinking of Coltan? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan
Yes, I'm sure. While looking up references for my previous post, I read about that. Coltan is another matter entirely, although it shares that particular characteristic of being the reason for much spilled blood.
Re: From sand to processor, or how a CPU is made
#24I'd love to know where that sand comes from. A professor in college once told us that not just any sand works for this process, and many wars have been fueled by the need to secure sources of that particular sand in Africa. Couldn't find any references, though...
I know of one place in Australia they tried to mine, but it was blocked on grounds that it was a part of a UNESCO site, the Great Barrier Reef; Whitehaven beach. Can't remember where I read this, it was 10+ years ago. The beach is 98% silica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehaven_beach
That was the problem, regular sand doesn't contain as much silica as is required for the process. Special sand is required.
Isn't it funny we can't find anything about where that sand comes from?
Re: From sand to processor, or how a CPU is made
#25There is a lot of interesting tech that goes into IC manufacturing, part of EE school was going through the design of a simple IC all the way to manufacturing which involved visiting National Semiconductor and having them fab it.
One of the things I found most interesting is that large sections of the manufacturing sections of the building sit on isolated vibration controlled platforms and there are 'Earthquake" sensors all over the place that can shutdown the plant if too much movement is detected. You can imagine that any vibration causes issues at such small scales. Some of the control platforms/benches are active, meaning they sense any vibration and counteract it using various kinds of actuators.
There are also a lot of really nasty chemicals that go into this. When they say 'Etch' they really mean 'melt it away with a really strong acid'. The materials used for donor doping, usually phosphorous or arsenic are really quite toxic chemicals not helped by the fact that these are often used in gaseous form for implantation and are colorless/oderless. The acceptor dopants are at least pretty harmless most of the time (gallium or boron). Many types of photoresist can also be really dangerous from a safety standpoint. Its pretty impressive that semiconductor plants operate as safely as do, choked up primarily to heavy automation.