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What is a Wafer? A wafer is a carrier used in the production of integrated circuits. A wafer is the basic raw material used to make ICs. A wafer provides a flat and highly pure surface to build integrated circuits, making it possible to create chips. Silicon is refined from sand, and a wafer is purified (99.999%), followed by this pure silicon into long silicon wafers, which become the material for manufacturing quartz semiconductors for integrated circuits. Wafer electronics
After photographic plate making, grinding, polishing, slicing, and other procedures, polycrystalline silicon is melted down and pulled out into single-crystal silicon rods, which are then cut into thin wafers one by one. The wafer is the most commonly used semiconductor material, and its diameter is divided into 4 inches, 5 inches ......20 inches above. The larger the wafer, the more ICs can be produced on the same wafer.
Wafer vs Chip
Chip is a semi-finished product of wafer cutting, the wafer is the carrier of the chip, and the wafer will be fully utilized to carve out a certain number of chips after cutting to form the chip. Wafer is the basic material for manufacturing semiconductor chips, the original material is silicon, the higher the purity of the material, the better the stability of the chip, and its electrical properties between the conductor and insulator. A chip is a silicon wafer containing integrated circuits, very small in size, usually manufactured on the surface of a semiconductor wafer.
(1) The wafer is the raw material for production, and after a fine process, many grains are formed.
(2) Dies are individual units cut out of a wafer, each of which can perform a specified function independently. They are usually tested to ensure that they are good (e.g., KGD die) and meet electrical performance and reliability requirements.
(3) The chip is the final product after the die is packaged and has a complete external interface to connect and work with other electronic devices.
The wafer in electronic products is mainly used for the production of chips, almost all electronic products will use the wafer. Wafer is often found in the following electronic products - Wafer electronics:
(1) Consumer electronics: wafers are used in a variety of integrated circuits in consumer electronics, including televisions, audio systems, and game consoles.
(2) Communications equipment: radio frequency (RF) devices and baseband processors in communications infrastructure such as base stations, routers, and network switches are based on wafer manufacturing.
(3) medical equipment: portable monitoring equipment, imaging equipment implantable medical devices and other high-end medical equipment, wafer manufacturing sensors, and processors play a key role.
(4) computers and servers: wafers are the basis for manufacturing central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and other high-performance computing chips.
(5) Wearable devices: smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other wearable devices in the micro-sensors and processors are also based on wafer technology.
(6) Smartphones and tablet PCs: the application processors, memory chips, and sensors in these devices are based on wafer manufacturing.
(7) automotive electronics: modern cars in the navigation system, entertainment systems, airbag sensors engine control units, etc. contain wafer manufacturing chips.
(8) Storage devices: hard disk drives (HDD), solid-state drives (SSD), and other storage devices in the storage chip depend on wafer technology.
Wafer chips can enhance reliability, promote miniaturization, and improve performance and other advantages. Wafer electronics