How difficult is it to create silicon chips and why?
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Silicon chips are all about layering – layering silicon, glass and metal together in just the right way to make the “circuit” you need.
You need advanced chemicals, precision, temperature control and lots of other tricky stuff to get those materials to line up exactly how you want.
DESIGNING the layers is tricky, but so is MAKING those layers. Very clever people found a way to layer together silicon, glass and metal to make flat little electrical switches (called MOSFETs). The design part of it is almost like asking “how hard is it to make software or develop a new drug;” if you know how to layer those materials together to get the “circuit” you want, then the design part is done. In fact, you could make a silicon chip that just acts as a light switch if you wanted.
Making it is a different animal and quite fascinating – a raw crystal is slowly drawn out of molten silicon, cooled and then sliced into thin round disks (wafers). Then, the layers are added into the wafers – patterns of glass and metal are layered on top and the silicon layer is “treated” in certain spots to give it different properties. The end result is a tiny, flat switch made possible by just the right layering of metal, silicon and glass.
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA has an outstanding exhibit on this. You can see an exhibit showing some of the first MOSFETs, planar ICs, etc. There is also a cool plaque at a restaurant called Buck’s in Woodside, CA that explains it and shows a wafer.
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