

From sand to processor, or how a CPU is made - ekleop
http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-2476

======
tristanperry
As an FYI, parts of this article have been taken without any attribution from:

[http://download.intel.com/pressroom/kits/chipmaking/Making_o...](http://download.intel.com/pressroom/kits/chipmaking/Making_of_a_Chip.pdf)

[http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/chipmaking/pdfs/Sand...](http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/chipmaking/pdfs/Sand-
to-Silicon_32nm-Version.pdf)

An example being the sentence "Sand, especially quartz, has high percentages
of silicon in the form of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and is the base ingredient
for semiconductor manufacturing." which seems to have been copied almost word
for word.

Other parts of the article appear to have been simply rewritten from other -
more reputable/original - sources too.

So to sum up, this source shouldn't be upvoted, IMO.

Also as an FYI, I love how Google rank this on page 1 for [How a CPU is
made]... (indeed, above the original sources)

~~~
Jach
Those links appear at the bottom of the page. So unless the author added them
just now after seeing your comment... I'm glad plagiarism by itself is not a
crime, there are some real witch hunters out there. (You can find a lot of
them by looking up Einstein's history.) If I were Google I'd probably favor an
HTML page over a PDF too when the content is more or less the same.

~~~
tristanperry
The links were added recently :)

And it's not really witch hunting - I'm merely pointing out that it's bad form
for someone to plagiarise and not attribute the source.

Still not a fan of word-for-word copying, but at least links have been added
:)

------
RKearney
You can avoid the blogspam and get the content directly from Intel here[1]
since it appears every bit of this content was just stolen directly from
Intel.

[1] <http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-2476>

------
mrleinad
I'd love to know where that sand comes from. A professor in college once told
us that not just any sand works for this process, and many wars have been
fueled by the need to secure sources of that particular sand in Africa.
Couldn't find any references, though...

~~~
tankenmate
I know of one place in Australia they tried to mine, but it was blocked on
grounds that it was a part of a UNESCO site, the Great Barrier Reef;
Whitehaven beach. Can't remember where I read this, it was 10+ years ago. The
beach is 98% silica.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehaven_beach>

~~~
mrleinad
That was the problem, regular sand doesn't contain as much silica as is
required for the process. Special sand is required.

Isn't it funny we can't find anything about where that sand comes from?

------
mbell
There is a lot of interesting tech that goes into IC manufacturing, part of EE
school was going through the design of a simple IC all the way to
manufacturing which involved visiting National Semiconductor and having them
fab it.

One of the things I found most interesting is that large sections of the
manufacturing sections of the building sit on isolated vibration controlled
platforms and there are 'Earthquake" sensors all over the place that can
shutdown the plant if too much movement is detected. You can imagine that any
vibration causes issues at such small scales. Some of the control
platforms/benches are active, meaning they sense any vibration and counteract
it using various kinds of actuators.

There are also a lot of really nasty chemicals that go into this. When they
say 'Etch' they really mean 'melt it away with a really strong acid'. The
materials used for donor doping, usually phosphorous or arsenic are really
quite toxic chemicals not helped by the fact that these are often used in
gaseous form for implantation and are colorless/oderless. The acceptor dopants
are at least pretty harmless most of the time (gallium or boron). Many types
of photoresist can also be really dangerous from a safety standpoint. Its
pretty impressive that semiconductor plants operate as safely as do, choked up
primarily to heavy automation.

------
chrisacky
Fascinating read. The end bit with the "binning" reminds me of WOW when you
would sometimes proc and get a pristine cut in Jewel Crafting.

~~~
svrcks
How can someone down vote this comment? Too many trolls in HN lately...

~~~
chrisacky
I knew it would happen anyway :) Probably the only comment I've made on HN
where I knew beforehand that mentioning WOW would instantly attract the down-
vote hammer. (I don't even play it any more, but knew if I mentioned that
tidbit of information as well, I would get downvoted by people who don't play
WOW, and people who play WOW now. ha).

~~~
brudgers
<meta> Short of snark and obvious trolling, worrying about downvotes is
counter-productive. Some people may downvote posts such as your jewel comment
due to the potential for sidetracking the discussion into something generally
outside the interests of HN. On the other hand, such a post may trigger an "I
never thought of it that way before" reaction.

------
antr
very educational. i knew where Si came from but never really knew how
circuitry was created. i'd love to see the machinery behind the actual
design/production of chips. superb submit

~~~
jonknee
AMD has a video on the topic. It's beautiful.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQmtITMdas>

How Its Made touched on it too:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg-mvrG-
K-E&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg-mvrG-
K-E&feature=related)

~~~
antr
these AMD videos are even better, thanks for pointing these out.

------
3mpach3r
All I could think about while reading this was minecraft...

