The Amazing, Humble Silicon Wafer

[@Asianometry]

Hope you enjoyed the video. Check out other deep dives here in the playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLKtxx9TnH76RiptUQ22iDGxNewdxjI6Xh

[@Conservator.]

I just want to thank you for yet another very interesting video. 🙏

[@leyasep5919]

@Asianometry you seem to have found the right idea for your april 1st video :-)

[@masternobody1896]

man this is epic now I know how cpu is so important

[@leyasep5919]

@@masternobody1896 and you haven't seen much yet... It's barely blowing on the surface.

[@masternobody1896]

@@leyasep5919 lmao then tell me

[@damianshaw8456]

I hate it when I accidentally dip my pen in to a crucible of molten tin

[@Asianometry]

Happens all the time

[@leyasep5919]

@@Asianometry I happen to have a crucible with molten eutectic tin+lead to help when I must "tin" a lot of wire ends. I'd have to be very very tired to mistake it for an ink reservoir.

[@Bialy_1]

Czochralski czochrał his pen in the wrong crucible... nothing out of the ordinary for him... 😆

[@musaran2]

8'957'656th invention due to a mistake.

[@thelastofthehitachi972]

'make it look like an accident' :)

[@properburger7378]

"Like all minerales and people, quartz is influenced by the enviroment in which it's grown". So double true. 👌

[@Asianometry]

Deep

[@Dr.Kraig_Ren]

"Paper is an Ipad that doesn't run out of battery." Don't know why, but this seems more deep.

[@oohhboy-funhouse]

@@Dr.Kraig_Ren I freaking died. Absolutely lapped up whatever the hell that was.

[@km077]

@Dr.Kay_R Ikr, paper runs on green energy.

[@xisthNB]

as someone working at ASML I scream internally when I see those wafers out of a cleanroom and someone touching them barehanded.

[@leyasep5919]

but they look SOOO GOOOD ! anyway I feel for you.

[@AndrewRosales-y1h]

Should I invest in ASML?

[@patrickscottwalsh]

my father designed machining for intel for board assembly and placing silicon wafer. said at the time it was almost impossible to do at the scale and had no clue how it pulled it off. He didn't even understand the engineering he did, but it worked. This was in the 90s. He still keep parts of the prototype around. Kinda cool.

[@Dr.Kraig_Ren]

Sounds like how we get tracked by Meta even without knowing how they track us. _(By the way, Meta is just a Facebook with a M instead of F)_ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@sk-sm9sh]

​@@Dr.Kraig_Ren "without knowing how they track us." pretty much every web developer, of whom there are literal millions, know how facebook tracks users, it's nothing marvelous. Bosses of millions of different websites that help facebook track your presence literally ask their hired web developers to plug in tracking scripts from facebook. It all kinda started from the Facebook like button that at some point had spread the internet. Even though this button disappeared the scripts are still used only that more often now they are hidden. Website owners plug these trackers because it helps them make few extra bucks from advertising partnerships.

[@Mothringer]

Loved the dry humor of that pen joke.😙👌

[@a11u45]

"Paper is like an iPad that doesn't run out of battery." Wow, that's amazing, I wonder why Apple makes iPads instead of paper when it doesn't run out of battery.

[@leyasep5919]

well, Apple can control what you install, do, watch, pay... Paper is too liberal :-D

[@gunner75171]

Ibm made a paper think pad. Definitely superior to the ipad, and much cheaper to produce. It's a shame technology is getting worse.

[@leyasep5919]

@@gunner75171 oh, was that an April fool's joke ?

[@sapphyrus]

Then they cannot charge you for battery replacement.

[@soylentgreenb]

The problem with paper is that it has a high per-frame cost as it is single use only and that it has a high display latency when a printer is used to update the screen or when a the display is manually scribed with a piece of graphite.

[@AngeloArrifano]

Harder, better, faster, stronger. Can't believe they split.

[@PatrickOliveras]

:(

[@VioletPrism]

Damn dude why would you remind me out the blue like this.

[@emerald39]

One more time, a celebration You know we're gonna do it right

[@JasperMorgan1]

DID THEY??

[@reillyarena4746]

Its hard to think that they could have kept going after RAM and Electroma come out. That really seemed to be it for them. No more nostalgia for the duo as just that.

[@henriquebusatto5991]

It would be nice to have a video on the industry of solar panels

[@Asianometry]

I did a video on the Chinese solar industry a while back. Worth checking out

[@consommableechographiealge8418]

yeah let's talk solar valley rather than silicon valley!!

[@baaxee]

Thank you for this. I finally got an answer for why wafers were circular if it was obviously more efficient to print square chips on a square substrate

[@Txyxy1]

It would be less efficient actually. The optics is round, so you would just lose part of its field, not get. Square substrate would be not only more difficult to get and process, it would be impractical for cleaning, where you need to rotate them. The corners would be more susceptible for damage and cracks. Square substrate is bad idea on so many levels.

[@deang5622]

Problems would be created for the spin coaters which spin on etch resist on the wafer with a square wafer.

[@tylerdurden3722]

Originally, wafers were square. ...by trimming a square out of a round disc.

[@psylantwolf]

-at 2:43, it is pronounced "peg-muh-tight" that they mine the quartz from. Pegmatites are any rock with very large crystal sizes. -Geologist

[@Asianometry]

It isn't an Asianometry video without a mispronunciation.

[@klobiforpresident2254]

Just wait until you get a Polish person watching this.

[@andersjjensen]

Standing ovation Sir! And it's a miracle that you didn't break your tongue at the Polish guys name! :P

[@Bialy_1]

He did poczochrał Czochralski name and made Czouchralski out of him. :P Gonna bet that he used google translate to read it because google translate is reading it as Czo-chra-lski, voice sounds like a native Polish speaker but in 3 separate files. btw. "czochrać"= rub, tatter, tousle, scratch, ripple. But most of the time you can hear it in Poland via word "poczochrany"(for man) or "poczochrana"(for woman) when someone is trying to describe a mess of hair, so i am not surprised that Czochralski invented his metod by messing of the pen...

[@Martinit0]

I actually found a YT video of Polish guy to figure out how to pronounce his name correctly: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5iXaYuba7pop9Usi=FUDlfES9ilYAgFEh&t=85

[@MoonMage67]

the freedom units at 9:30 hurt my soul

[@Asianometry]

🇺🇸🇺🇸

[@Erik-rp1hi]

You might not believe this but I worked at a company in the 90's that got a job from Sanyo Solar in Carson Ca. (LA county) to make ingot transfer carts for ingot right out of the growing machines. They were lined with 1/4" (6.25 mm) kelvar blanket material. They made Solar panels here in the US! Or at least the silicon wafers. That was a different era. Paying people a bowl of rice for a days work became the trend.

[@tylerdurden3722]

Let's say someone starts a silicon ingot production company and pays their employees rediculously generous salaries They pay employees $1 billion in total per ingot produced. Of course you can't sell that ingot for less than a billion if you plan to recoup the costs of the labor that went into making it...or you'll go bankrupt, and everyone loses their jobs. Let's say a separate company buys those ingots and makes wafers from that ingot, and also pays their employees a billion in total per batch of wafers produced (from 1 ingot). So now that batch cost 2 billion (in just labor). A fab buys those wafers, and makes micro chips from the wafers...adding another billion in labor costs to that batch. Then you see the CPU in a store and complain that it's too expensive priced at $3 million each. How do you suppose we make that CPU cheaper for you?

[@jecelassumpcaojr890]

Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) were considered to be the future in the 1990s. They are still around as a niche product. Another niche is Silicon Carbide (SiC) for power electronics.

[@Jaker788]

And now molybdenum disulfide is showing up for power electronics, though currently on smaller stuff like 45w chargers. I don't think any cars or chargers for cars or forklifts have used it yet. There's potential to make it useful for logic, but there's a lot of work to be done in order to make it so.

[@michaelharrison1093]

@@Jaker788 are you sure about that? Power semiconductor technology is my field of expertise and I have not heard about any research into MbSO2 I would be interested if you can point me towards any research you are aware of

[@deang5622]

I worked in the 90's with both GaAs and Si. GaAs logic devices were much faster but the yield rate was diabolical. If I recall it was as low as 50%. That and material cost meant it was just far too expensive to be used for commercial grade chips. The metallisation layer we used was gold, so no doubt that made GaAs more expensive. I remember doing one design and the engineering samples (a small pre-production quantity) cost £1000 each, this is 1990's prices.

[@johnweiner]

The common joke back then was that GaAs was the semiconductor of the future and always would be.

[@gabriellang7998]

@@deang5622 So basically silicon is a poor man's material? :|

[@truegret7778]

You did a great job describing the Cz single-crystal-silicon ingot pull ;) I worked at ARCO Solar a few years, then Siemens purchased ARCO. People don't realize or appreciate the amount of energy and effort it takes to grow an ingot. The melt of silicon on the crucible is rotated say, CCW while the seed is rotated CW. The seed is oriented a specific way ( the term 1-1-0 rings a bell ), and as I recall 4mm x 4mm x 100mm. I was there when we changed from ID saws (more kerf loss) to wire saws (the carbon slurry was with Mobil One) We could cut 4 ingots on one wire saw, yielding about 800-1200 wafers per 36 hours where the ID saw took about 48 hours for one ingot yielding about 200-250 wafers. We made 105mm wafers (as I recall), then 125mm after I left.

[@kenheil7116]

Hi, enjoyed the Wafer video. I worked at a (at that time) Monsanto Silicon Wafer plant in Spartanburg SC. we built a new plant there and made 4" and 5" wafers. At that time (early 80s) that was about the largest being produced commercially. I actually have quite a few samples, lapped, polished as well as a short piece of rod and some chunks of polysilicon from a quartz crucible, actually have a couple of those also. Was a great business, but moved on in my career to other businesses.

[@htomerif]

This probably won't be your most popular video but its incredibly important. I'll have to do some reading on US domestic silicon boule production. It seems odd that we would be financing a $12bn TSMC plant in AZ while also having the source silicon produced in the US without producing 300mm wafers here as well (we very well may, I just don't know). If you're running low on ideas, electron beam lithography has been able to produce nanometer(ish) feature sizes for almost 30 years. I know the DoD has been funding it for at least that long but I don't know what secret squirrel types of products have been being produced by EBL. -edit Oh, also, yeah... Graphene. A lot of people (not you, other people) make the mistake of thinking a good semiconductor is automatically equally good at things like forming insulating layers or accepting metalization layers. Decades have gone into developing dielectrics and processes explicitly for silicon that are completely incompatible with graphene. Lets go full TL;DR. Graphene might be another good topic. I'm assuming that semiconductor grade graphene has very little to do with the idealized graphene sheets people think of. I would think it would have to be at least cross linked graphene. I don't think you can just stack a bunch of graphene layers on top of each other and expect them to stay stuck together through even just operating temperature differentials. Also: high-k dielectrics. That was on the radar like a decade ago at the 45nm node, but everything seems to have gone quiet. I don't think its because things are actually quiet though. I think high-k dielectrics are now very highly guarded industrial secrets.

[@denysvlasenko4952]

EBL is used to make masks for photolithography.

[@randomamerican8236]

Growing up my mom used to work in a fab in SoCal and she would sometimes bring wafers home and show me what it is she did for work (I was a kid, had no clue wtf she was saying it was way too complicated). I'm guessing the wafers she brought me were faulty orwere thrown out for QC issues since they seem kinda expensive. Her company (Microsemi) was snapped up by an Israeli firm and she switched industries shortly after. I have so much respect for her, can't believe humans went from cavemen to turning sand into these hypercomplicated semiconducters. If you tried explaining this process to someone not too long ago they would just chalk it up as being magic.

[@Dhoomie]

“Paper is like an iPad that doesn’t run out of battery” -Asianomotry, 2022

[@Authoratah]

Gen-Z-splaining pen and paper was hilarious

[@SomeSortaPro]

As someone just beginning to fall in love with the world of engineering and electronics this video was fucking phenomenal thank you

[@leyasep5919]

then watch the whole archive of this channel. Then find other channels, KZbin has many electronics design specialists !

[@ChairmanHehe]

the subtle references at the start of your videos are amazing

[@Paulkjoss]

“Paper is like an iPad that doesn’t run out of battery” 😂 Great video 👍🏾

[@nexusyang4832]

Had me dying!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@KarrasBastomi]

He roasted gen Z to the Bone... Lmao

[@vk3fbab]

The funny thing is he's probably right. Imagine gen z looking at vacuum tubes.

[@hotosabjatahaiprabhoo..kar8081]

@@KarrasBastomi ok boomer

[@oohhboy-funhouse]

@@hotosabjatahaiprabhoo..kar8081 Easy there, we are just as much ok boomer as you are. It was one hell of a joke.

[@EyesOfByes]

That pop music intro though...

[@Asianometry]

Appealing to the youths

[@jerrywatson1958]

Awesome technical video! You explain the subject very well. You are never boring, and your pace and tone are incredible. I am surprised Bloomberg hasn't snapped you up yet. Thanks for all your hard work. The research and time to make and edit the video should be applauded. 👏

[@scottfranco1962]

In the category of alternative materials to silicon, unmentioned are diamond (carbon) and gallium arsenide. There was also a vogue for sapphire as a base material (coating of the wafer prior to patterning), which if this old man recalls was SOS or Silicon on Sapphire.

[@grischu8277]

Im following you for quite a while now. Your way of presenting is very unique. You aren't overly enthusiastic (or actually almost not at all) but especially combined with your writing, it just works. The editing, while pretty much basic, also fits your style very well (pls keep including those bad jokes, in writing and in picture x) )

[@ronaldanderson9263]

I'm an old American koot of 62, I was working in the burgeoning digital and mixed signal industries in California in the late 70s though the 90s I enjoy this channel greatly. It saddens me to see where we have fallen to in America even with the luxuries we now enjoy from the brow sweat of our patriarchs

[@eclipseslayer98]

Silicon wafers are my most favorite snack.

[@Snowbobadger]

The silicon demand problem isn't solved by graphene either. Graphene nanoelectronic devices still require a silicon substrate. Graphene is useful when it's as flat as possible, silicon, more specifically silicon dioxide, is not flat, but provides a good starting point. Atomically flat flakes of other crystals, Hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN) being one, are placed atop the silicon substrate. This is achieved by peeling off thinner and thinner layers of hBN crystals from a larger parent crystal. Graphene is then transferred onto the hBN using a similar method. On the hBN, graphene can lay falt and it's tremendous properties can be utilised. So although graphene is an interesting and exciting advancement for nanoelectric and spintronic devices, we're a long way from a silicon free world. Silicon itself is too versatile a substrate and the manufacturing processes are too well developed to transition to other materials just yet. If you're interested in more, check out the Graphene research group at the University of Manchester. I used to work in the condensed matter research team there under Dr. Ivan Vera Marun. My research involved investigating magnetotransport and thermoelectric effects in ferromagnetic channels on hBN substrates. It's cool stuff!

[@denysvlasenko4952]

what "silicon demand problem"?

[@deang5622]

Thermoelectric effect - cool stuff. Loving the pun Mr. Owens 🤪

[@deang5622]

Struggling to remember now, there used to be a materials science building, was it a joint venture between Owens and UMIST I think?

[@Revan-kq7ih]

I love the primer on pens.

[@user-ft5qk4nv4f]

0:05 T E C H N O L O G I C

[@covert0overt_810]

7:01 --- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHMAZING

[@bitrage.]

omg, i LOVE LOVE LOVE these silicon wafer vids!!!! keep the comming!!!

[@Akshay-xo5iy]

Very well-curated video. Me being an avid semiconductor industry enthusiast found this video to be pretty impressive.

[@darknessss9412]

You left out Gas Plasma Vapor etching. It was big back in the late 60's and 70's. It cleaned, polished and scribed lines that allowed the wafers to be snapped without any substantial damage. I would say continuous improvements in the etching process is what has driven the industry forward.

[@deang5622]

I disagree. Etching is just one small part of the complete manufacturing process of integrated circuits. The thing that has really made the difference and enabled more transistors to be integrated in to a "chip" is the photolithography. The etching is the next stage of processing after photolithography. The achievements have been in going to smaller and smaller wavelengths of light in the photolithography and still assuring the image definition when the mask pattern is projected onto the etch resist coating covering the wafer.

[@TheJttv]

the gen-z shade, lmao

[@JasperMorgan1]

NICE #DAFTPUNK REFERENCE

[@simonhansen8205]

Excellent fountain pen explanation! : ))

[@JohnnieWalkerGreen]

(7:02) LOL, indeed: I did learn to write with that back in elementary school.

[@Martinit0]

Probably also worth mentioning Disco Corporation, another Japanese firm which specializes in making the silicon dicing blades to cut the wafer down into chips. Another example of the incredible specialization that exists in the semiconductor supply chain.

[@pumpkinheadghoul]

ABSOLUTELY MINDBLOWING! What's even more amazing, considering the modern miracles of science which goes into creating these microchips, is that one microchip doesn't cost as much as a house. If you were to travel back 100 years, you wouldn't even be able to explain the concept of a microchip to another person. It would have been far beyond what even science fiction was capable of imagining. To the untrained brain, mine for example, just one microchip is as mind-boggling as the depths of the universe.

[@davecool42]

Daft Punk sends their love.

[@901blitz]

YEAH! I caught that too. I think I only caught that because I just listen the 2007 Alive album.

[@maus3454]

ShinEtsu has also a very large site in the Rotterdam harbour.

[@everydreamai]

Cut it, etch it, grind it, clean it, crystalize it, polish it. Technologic. Technologic.

[@possamei]

00:06 my man went full technologic

[@Dennis-uc2gm]

A nice review of the type of place I worked at as a Electrical Maint. Tech. in the late 90's. All of our stuff was 200mm but there were a couple of experimental 300mm pullers in our building being run on and off at the time.

[@hunter8980]

Tons and tons of information that I could not find in any other video tutorial. GREAT JOB! Thanks!

[@SpaceCakeism]

Didn't expect technologic (song) reference; fitting, I s'pose.

[@lashlarue7924]

Given the amazing quality of this channel, I am utterly mystified as to why it isn't vastly more popular than it already is. This is prima facie evidence that most homo sapiens are basically stupid.

[@JoshuaC923]

Instructions unclear, paper ran out of battery... Love the information and tidbits of humour!

[@manu.yt25]

Oh nice, by the way good job fixing the audio level issue, I can finally enjoy your videos without needing to smash my volume to 100% 😍

[@Vel_In_Love]

7:02 Best part of the entire video.

[@HeavyRayne]

Great video! Heavy on the jokes...

[@leyasep5919]

April 1st : Asianometry publishes a video that compares a revolutionary technology that rivals the Ipad. Totally biodegradable, made of wood fibers...

[@ministryofyahushua3065]

I have not been in the industry for decades, but I think Synthetic Diamonds have potential.

[@Mannuu1]

Paper and pen explanation diserves a like 😂😂 so good. 👌

[@josuad6890]

CZ casually put his pen on a melting tin crucible casually and revolutionize the world as we know it. what a chad.

[@africanelectron751]

The philosopher of the wafer and etch.

[@saivarunkolluru]

That sarcasm on fountain pens 😂😂😂

[@nicholas5623]

Had no idea what a silicon wafer was, just came from the transition to the 300 mm wafer video. Figured I should start here first lol

[@rohitdighe852]

was bored with older videos, i am a gen z electronics and computer engineer. this one was very entertaining and informative at the same time

[@Skunkhunt_42]

Yup spruce pine silica- neat stuff

[@barthandelus8340]

That was proper good mate, nice one! Hi from London! Subbed.

[@lkrnpk]

I have never seen a guy on youtube so much into semiconductors and silicon wafers :D

[@pickoftheglitter]

The Gen-Z joke (paper is like iPad without battery) was absolutely awesome 🤣🤣🤣

[@RyanS_Himself]

I wasn't paying attention for a short time until I heard you say, "paper is like an iPad that doesn't run out of battery!" You get a video like from me for this.

[@yogaforsuccess]

Very informative. Thank you

[@antman7673]

Silicon: “Crush it, grind it, legalize it.”

[@johngiraldi1150]

Subscribed... my go to channel for dead-pan tech and humor.

[@PaulSpades]

Cut it, shine it, clean it, cristalize it!

[@howardjohnson2138]

I read the title as Hubble Silicon Wafer and waited all the way through your interesting presentation and when you said that was it, I had to check the title again and realize my mistake. Thank you

[@eggscalibur5549]

I think the thing I learned the most from this video is what is pen and paper, none of my classmates know

[@jimmysroom5132]

"let me do a primer for the gen-z members of my audience. Back, then they used these things called pens to write" AYYYY

[@SlazeM7]

Would love to hear your take on minimal fab

[@V0TION]

Paper tutorial nice, now I know

[@csours]

I for one would welcome a deep dive on any and all of the steps mentioned.

[@leyasep5919]

idem !

[@wingn3849]

Guy: I work making top-grade silicon. Girl: Can you get me a good deal on a pair?

[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

I would like a video going deeper into the silicon used for solar panels, developments in that field and the differences with electronic grade silicon. Kinda like a side video to this one.

[@howardjohnson2138]

Very Interesting. Thank you

[@effexon]

@0:30 so shiny, so pretty! (someone might take a bit of it)

[@alexxtodorov]

Didn't wait till the Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger reference to finish and clicked the like button.

[@anupamsircar111]

Informative and insightful, as always. Hats off!!!!

[@danis8455]

How your channel don't have more subs, is beyond me! You do amazing work over and over! i feel like i even wrote you this before! But was true then as well!

[@YuriPetrovich]

That was enlightening!

[@mbhinkle]

Didn't think it would be so funny and entertaining thanks.

[@blahsomethingclever]

The next evolution will be self assembling semi conductors. I'm sure of it. Lots of basic research needed though. I have some ideas..

[@JohnD0421]

Thanks!

[@ryobibattery]

Dumb question...what are the wafers actually used for? Is it like the "backbone" the "foundation" of a microchip?

[@jtgd]

“Let me write this letter” Accidentally dips pen in molten tin instead of ink. “Oops, silly me!”

[@sumansaha295]

Oh what would I do without the crucible of molten tin by my study table.

[@angadsingh9314]

LMFAOO

[@mikemurphy8714]

I thought you were quoting Daft Punk Technologic right in the begging there

[@iJigarThakkar]

Great humar at 7:10

[@ananasw]

Super interesting video thanks

[@nickplays2022]

I wish these videos were shown at schools

[@ThorsMartell]

"Paper is like an iPad that doesn't run out of battery" 🤣

[@Nedumgottil]

Great video as usual John

[@krish2nasa]

Excellent explanation, thank you very much.

[@SergeiKozak]

"Paper is like an iPad that does not run out of battery"!