Book Review of
SILICON PROCESSING FOR THE VLSI ERA - Vol. 1

This Review was Published in Semiconductor International, May 2001

Written by Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor
There are many texts that deal with semiconductor processes and device production, any of which would probably serve adequately as a general engineering reference source. SILICON PROCESSING FOR THE VLSI ERA, however, stands out among them.

Although the contents are what one would expect in a book of this kind - Crystal Growing and Wafer Preparation, Basics of Thin Films, Thermal Oxidation of Silicon, etc. - the special aspect of this text is that it has been written by only two authors, based on seminars they presented through the University of California (Berkeley).

Because of this, the entire work is refreshingly uniform in both style and analysis, and the descriptions and definitions of the various subjects it covers are clear, concise, and consistent. The first edition of this title has been widely used as a university text, and there is no reason to believe this will not be the case with this new incarnation.

Since the book was written to be a text, not a handbook, each chapter provides valuable tutorial background material, gives a more comprehensive presentation, and may be read as a separate treatise on its subject.

This is particularly useful for the engineer whose field of specialty may not lie in a chapter's particular coverage area. Another valuable facet of the work is that each chapter not only presents the basic physics and chemistry of the process it addresses, but also provides examples of the equipment used to carry out those processes.

Then, for the reader who afterward wishes to measure his or her understanding of the subject matter, there are problems to be solved at the end of each chapter.

The second edition of SILICON PROCESSING covers the many new processes and materials incorporated into IC fabrication since the first edition was published 15 years ago. These include: 300-mm wafers; DUV lithography; chemically-amplified resists; high-energy ion implantation; high-density plasma sources for CVD and etching; step-and-scan aligners; CMP; dual-damascene interconnects; copper metalization; and low-k dielectrics.

The text resides in more than 900 pages and is supplemented by 600 illustrations and 1500 references.

If you are looking for a device manufacturing reference source that bridges the often enormous gap between highly specialized texts and general handbooks, you should consider getting SILICON PROCESSING FOR THE VLSI ERA for your professional bookshelf. "