Fabrication (or Manufacturing)is the process of building circuits on a silicon wafer in a cleanroom environment where all aspects of production (temperature, power, chemistries, moisture, contamination, etc.) are tightly controlled. It take 40 to 150 days to complete the fabrication process.

Cleanroom is a room that has HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filtration to remove particles from the air. Cleanrooms are used for manufacturing where high levels of cleanliness and sterility are required. Common applications of the cleanroom include manufacturing of medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors.

CMP is used to smooth the surface of wafers following other manufacturing steps, such as etching and cleaning.

Cleaning involves removing residues left on the wafer by the etching process.

Deposition adds thin films of materials on a wafer to become parts of chips. Techniques include chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, electrochemical coating, spin-coating, rapid thermal processing, and tube- based diffusion and deposition.

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) tools create a chemical vapor that deposits films on the wafer atom-by-atom or molecule-by-molecule.

Physical vapor deposition (PVD) tools vaporize a solid or liquid material, which then condenses onto a substrate. The primary PVD method is called “sputtering.”

Rapid thermal processing (RTP) is critical to several steps in chip manufacturing. RTP tools include lamps, lasers, or other mechanisms to quickly increase the temperature of a wafer in order to change its properties.

Design determines the layout of transistors and wiring on a chip to be manufactured.

Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) is a memory chip that stores data while a computer operates, but loses it when the computer powers down.

Electronic design automation (EDA) software is used to design chips.

Etching tools are used to create permanent patterns on chips: after photolithography has removed certain parts of a photoresist deposited on a wafer according to a specific pattern, the etching tools etch this pattern into a permanent substrate bellow. Dry etching and wet etching use a gas and a liquid, respectively, for the etching process.

Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are logic chips that can be reprogrammed after deployment to suit specific calculations.

Foundries are semiconductor manufacturing facilities that manufacture chips for third-party customers.

Graphics processing units (GPUs) are specialized logic chips used most commonly for graphics processing and developing artificial intelligence algorithms.

Lithography enables the creation of precise patterns in chemical substances (such as photoresists) deposited on a wafer. Techniques used include photolithography, electron beam lithography, laser lithography and ion beam lithography.

Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) are firms that perform all three steps of production: design; fabrication; and assembly, testing, and packaging.

Ion implanters embed impurities (called dopants) into parts of wafers to change their properties.

NAND flash is a memory chip that stores memory permanently, even when power is turned off.

Outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) firms perform assembly, testing, and packaging for third-party customers.

Packaging involves attaching a manufactured chip to an encasing package.

Photomasks are transparent plates featuring a circuit pattern through which photolithography equipment directs light in order to transfer this pattern onto the chip.

Photoresists are chemicals deposited on a wafer that selectively dissolve to form the circuit pattern when exposed to patterned light that has passed through a photomask after being generated by a photolithography tool.