2. ■ Silicon is a chemical element with symbol Si
and atomic number 14.
■ A hard and brittle crystalline solid with a blue-
grey metallic lustre, it is a tetravalent metalloid
and semiconductor.
■ It is a member of group 14 in the periodic table,
along with carbon above it and germanium, tin,
and lead below.
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4. ■ A silicon chip is an integrated circuit made primarily of silicon. Silicon is
one of the most common substances used to develop computer chips.
The picture shows an example of a silicon wafer with dozens of
individual silicon chips.
■ Silicon is formed into pure silicon crystals using the Czochralski method,
which involves using electric arc furnaces to transform raw materials
(mostly quartz rock) into metallurgical-grade silicon.
■ To help reduce any impurities the silicon is converted into a liquid,
distilled, and then formed back into rods.
■ The rods or poly silicon is then broken up into chunks and placed into a
special oven that is purged with Argon gas to eliminate any air. The
oven melts the chunks when heated to over 2,500° Fahrenheit.
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5. ■ After the chunks have been melted, the molten silicon is spun
in a crucible while a small seed crystal is inserted into the
molten silicon.
■ While continuing to spin and cool the seed is slowly pulled out
of the molten silicon resulting in one large crystal. Often
weighing more than several hundred pounds.
■ The large silicon crystal is then tested and x-rayed to make
sure it is pure.
■ If the crystal is found to be pure it is cut into thin slices called
wafers, like the one shown on this page.
■ After being cut each wafer is buffered to remove any
impurities that may have been caused when it was sliced.
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6. ■ Once all buffering has been completed the wafer is inserted into a machine
that etches the silicon with the circuit design. These designs are etched
using a process called photolithography.
■ Photolithography works by first coating the wafer using a photo sensitive
chemicals that harden when exposed to UV light and then exposing the
wafer to the chip design layer using a UV light.
■ After being exposed the remaining photo sensitive chemicals are washed
away leaving only the chip design. Depending on the requirements of that
layer after the chemicals are washed away it may be cooked, blasted with
ionized plasma, or bathed in metals. Each chip design has multiple layers, so
the photolithography steps are repeated several times for each layer until
complete.
■ Finally, each silicon chip is sliced from the wafer.
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8. ■ Step 1: Prepare a Requirement Specification
■ Step 2: Create a Micro-Architecture Document.
■ Step 3: RTL(Register Transfer Level) Design & Development of
IP's(Intellectual Property)
■ Step 4: Functional verification all the IP's/Check whether the RTL is free
from Linting Errors/Analyze whether the RTL is Synthesis friendly.
■ Step 4a: Perform Cycle-based verification(Functional) to verify the protocol
behavior of the RTL
■ Step 4b: Perform Property Checking , to verify the RTL implementation
and the specification understanding is matching.
■ Step 4c: Perform Clock Domain Crossing check, to verify that proper
synchronization of control/data is there to ensure reliable cross domain
data transfers.
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10. ■ The "recipe" for making a chip varies depending on the chip’s
proposed use. Making chips is a complex process requiring
hundreds of precisely controlled steps that result in patterned
layers of various materials built one on top of another.
■ A photolithographic "printing" process is used to form a chip’s
multilayered transistors and interconnects (electrical circuits)
on a wafer. Hundreds of identical processors are created in
batches on a single silicon wafer.
■ Once all the layers are completed, a computer performs a
process called wafer sort test. The testing ensures that the
chips perform to design specifications.
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12. ■ A computer chip contains many transistors or
switches. The transistors control the flow of electricity
through the chip following the complex instructions of
computer code. Silicon and other semiconductors
provide the right conductivity for tight control.
Conductors, such as most metals, let the electricity
flow straight through the material and control is not
possible. Insulators, such as most plastics, do not
allow electricity to travel through them.
Semiconductors allow electricity to move in a
controlled pattern to facilitate the creation of complex
chip circuits.
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13. ■ Although other semiconductors exist, silicon is common and
inexpensive. It is the second most abundant element in the
Earth's crust, accounting for about 28 percent of it by mass.
Computer chips are complex, multilayered devices with
detailed circuitry that require the addition of some insulator
into their circuits. Silicon combines with oxygen to make the
insulator silicon oxide. This process is easy for chip
manufacturers.
■ On the other hand, silicon is not the fastest semiconductor. In
some high-speed applications, computer chips are
manufactured from crystals formed of arsenic and gallium.
This more expensive material is also more difficult to work
with, but it does provide top speed when necessary.
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15. An integrated circuit (IC), sometimes called a chip
or microchip, is a semiconductor wafer on which
thousands or millions of tiny resistors, capacitors,
and transistors are fabricated. An IC can function
as an amplifier, oscillator, timer, counter,
computer memory, or microprocessor. A
particular IC is categorized as either linear
(analog) or digital, depending on its intended
application.
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