Using Photolithography to Make Semiconductors

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Photolithography is a process of where ultraviolet light and stencils or masks are used to transfer the image of the chip’s circuitry pattern, on each wafer so as to reproduce the chip exactly as the original. The whole process is done by way of a machine so the design is replicated perfectly. The way it works in a nut shell is the ultraviolet light passes through the patterned mask, or stencil if you will, an onto a silicon wafer. The mask itself protects certain parts of the wafer from being exposed to the light. The light hits the surface and turns the exposed areas into a gooey layer of photoresist (a substance which becomes soluble when exposed to ultraviolet light. When designing chips, each layer uses a different mask to create different patterns. Eventually the gooey photoresist dissolves by a solvent revealing a pattern. This pattern is contained on silicon dioxide. The silicon dioxide is etched away with chemicals.

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