Silica is a chemical that, in its manufactured, crystalline form, is ideally suited for use as a semiconductor.
A semiconductor, a device made of silica, partly conducts and partly insulates-thus its name-and is ideal for conveying electronic signals in a controllable manner. It is often used interchangeably with the term “integrated circuit,” or IC, which is a miniaturized electronic circuit consisting mainly of semiconductor devices as well as passive devices. An IC is more accurately used interchangeably with the term “chip.”
Chip makers grow silicon cones that are sliced into thin wafers, typically 12 inches in diameter. Those wafers are taken to a foundry to be etched with traces which serve as conduits for electronic pulses. The conduits also have gates that act as on-off switches for those electronic pulses, which allow control of the “ones” and “zeros” that compose software code that produces a phone’s logic capabilities.
The etched “platters” typically are cut into quarter-inch by quarter-inch chips. The smaller the chip, the more chips per platter, the more efficient the process, the less expensive the chip when sold to customers. (The smallest etched features on a chip are measured in nanometers, or one-billionth of a meter. The industry is moving from 90-nm technology to 65-nm technology, with 45-nm and even 22-nm in the works.)
Thus, the “lithography” or footprint of the chip’s dimension is shrinking to bring prices down for competitive reasons. The design of the etching and the architecture of the gates are critical to the chip’s functionality.
The resulting silicon chip is packaged in plastic with lead wires attached so that it may be integrated into a circuit board inside the phone. -Phil Carson
