Understanding the Silicon Wafer

Are you looking to buy silicon wafers? Here are some important points that you need to consider while buying a wafer product. You must consider the quality of material being used to fabricate, diameter of the wafer and resistivity.  

Type of Silicon Wafers:

The wafer type depends on the conductivity requirements. Wafers carry a particular charge and commonly referred to as either N-Type and P-Type.

• N-type Silicon Wafers: Silicon wafers that have more electrons in their current carriers are negative charges and referred to as N-Type.
• P-type Silicon Wafers: When Silicon wafers are missing electrons from their current carriers, they have a positive charge, so they are P-Type.

Charges on the silicon wafers is given by the addition of dopants. P-type silicon wafers are produced by doping with boron. It produces positively charged silicon wafers. Doping with  Phosphorous, Antimony, and Arsenic produces N-Type wafer  carry  a negative charge on the surface.

Dopant and its effect on Resistivity:

The Dopant is an impurity that is added to the silicon during the production process. A dopant  functions by altering the chemical properties of the silicon wafer. Therefore, resistivity of a silicon wafer greatly depends upon the Dopant and the amount in which it is doped.

Property of Resistivity:  

Resistivity refers to the current flow and electron movement in the silicon. Depending on the purpose of the wafer, the resistivity needs to be altered through doping. The resistivity is decreased by adding more dopants to the silicon. Materials that have been heavily doped used to have lower resistivity.

Understanding Wafer Size:

Silicon Wafer Pricing is an essential element in the realization of integrated circuits production and manufacturing. Increasing the wafer size requires a lot of investment. Silicon wafer manufacturing technologies were re-engineered to achieve the necessary increase in the wafer size. In the last few years, wafer size has increased from 1 inch wafers to300mm i.e. 11.8 times larger. Many manufactures are working on a clear plan to increase the wafer size to1.5 times larger than 300mm. A larger wafer diameter enables producing more semiconductor devices from a single waferto enhance the productivity and efficiency.