 |
Here you can see a collection of SEM pictures which not only illustrate graphically the "particle" problem in making chips, but also have a certain esthetical appeal | |||||||||||||
 |
Click on the link for an enlarged view. | |||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
| Red blood cells on a 1 Mbit memory (large size) |
Hair (from a female) on a 256 kbit memory
chip. Just one of the little flakes of the hair would be enough to cover one
memory cell. (large size) |
Hair on a 4Mbit memory chip. - just to show
how structure sizes decrease. (large size) |
Here a metal particle, probably a tiny drop of
Al that was burnt of by a an electrical discharge in a sputtering
machine and hit the Si as a solidified droplet . It was coated with
Al which was subsequently structured by etching. Four conducting lines
are now short circuited. (large size) |
Mother nature is still ahead when it comes to
small structures. Here we see spiderwebs on a 256 k DRAM. A typical
strand of spider silk consists of several individual strings with diameters
around 0.2 µm. (large size) |
Here is a particle of unknown nature.
Whatever it is, it will kill a chip. (large size) |
|||||||||
5.3.1 Cleanrooms, Particles and Contamination
© H. Föll
To index