ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR FABRICATION

Semiconductor fabrication stands among the most intricate and consequential engineering disciplines of the modern era. The integrated circuits that power smartphones, data centers, automobiles, medical devices, and the emerging generation of artificial intelligence accelerators are the product of hundreds of tightly choreographed process steps, each demanding control at the atomic scale. "Advanced Semiconductor Fabrication" was written to give graduate students, practicing process engineers, and technically curious readers a single, coherent, and rigorous account of how these devices are actually made.
This book grew out of years of teaching, research, and industry collaboration in the field of microelectronics manufacturing. It is organized around the seven pillars named in the subtitle - lithography, etching, deposition, doping, chemical mechanical planarization, interconnects, and process integration - because these are the technological building blocks from which every modern integrated circuit, regardless of its final application, is assembled. Rather than treating these topics as isolated unit processes, the book consistently returns to the theme of integration: how the choices made in one module constrain and enable the modules around it, and how the entire flow must be co-optimized to yield a working, reliable, and economically viable chip.
The book begins with foundational material - crystal growth, wafer preparation, and the semiconductor physics that underlies device operation - before proceeding through each major process module in turn. Later chapters address advanced topics including extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, atomic layer deposition and etching, FinFET and gate-all-around (GAA) transistor architectures, copper dual-damascene interconnects, low-k dielectrics, and the metrology and yield-management practices that hold a modern fabrication facility together. The book then extends this foundation to memory technology (DRAM and 3D NAND), packaging and test, compound semiconductors (GaN and SiC), and specialty devices (MEMS, image sensors, and power devices), before a concluding chapter examines the environmental control, infrastructure, and sustainability considerations underlying every process described in the book.
Throughout the text, care has been taken to combine physical intuition with quantitative rigor. Key equations are derived and explained rather than simply stated; process trade-offs are discussed in the practical language of manufacturability, cost, and yield, alongside the underlying physics and chemistry. Original figures, schematic diagrams, and comparison tables are provided throughout to reinforce concepts and to serve as a quick reference for the practicing engineer.
This book assumes a working knowledge of undergraduate solid-state physics, basic chemistry, and electrical circuits. It is suitable as a primary text for a graduate-level course in semiconductor manufacturing or VLSI technology, as a supplementary reference for courses in device physics or microsystems, and as a self-study resource for engineers transitioning into the semiconductor industry from adjacent fields.
I am grateful to the many colleagues, students, and reviewers whose questions, corrections, and insights sharpened this material over the years. Any errors that remain are my own, and I welcome correspondence from readers who identify them so that future editions may be improved.