EE Bookshelf: Demystifying Chipmaking

Have you ever wondered how complex ICs are really made, and how you get from raw silicon to finished chips?  I was lucky enough to spend a short but happy part of my career working at a fairly large chip fab (though as an apps engineer, nothing to do with manufacturing), but still find myself with more questions than answers on the gritty details of it all.  It was an amazing eye-opener for me to see first-hand the kind of mastery and machinery that it takes to produce finished chips, going through design, processing, testing, packaging, characterization, etc.  I think the only thing as humbling has to be seeing something like the space programs at NASA or something similar.  You can only be in awe of the level of mastery required across so many disciplines to pull something like this off.

Unfortunately, most of the technical documentation out there on this stuff is understandably written for and by people who are hopelessly above my pay grade, and I don’t understand a fraction of it (and I’m happy to admit it!).  If you’re really curious about getting an accessible look into chip design without the need for 10 years of training in semiconductor physics, though, Demystifying Chipmaking by Yanda, Heynes and Miller (published by Newnes) is an unusually accessible introduction to the topic.  (You can even get the first three chapters free in a preview off Amazon if you have a Kindle or download the Kindle SW.)  It’s an old book, but it’s still relevant today since it’s focused on CMOS, and even if they only talk a bit about the <100nm processes that are common today, the basics still apply.  Have a look at the free chapters, and see if the rest interests you!


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2 Comments

  1. A link to the actual book – such as http://www.amazon.ca/Demystifying-Chipmaking-Richard-F-Yanda/dp/0750677600 – would have been nice.

  2. Randy:

    It’s a conscious choice not to put links to any specific retailer(s). It’s relatively easy to find the books from your preferred retailer, and we want to leave the choice to customers to decide where they’d like to spend their money rather than pushing them in a specific direction ourselves.

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