Semiconductors: how Air Liquide optimizes chip manufacturing with its advanced materials?

To function, your smartphone needs an electronic chip, also known as a semiconductor.

A chip is made up of billions of electronic components.

Nowadays, electronic components (or transistors) can measure as little as a few nanometers.

One nanometer is 1 billion times smaller than a millimeter.

• A human hair: 80 micrometers
• A virus: 300 nanometers
• An electronic component: 1 nanometer (for the smallest ones)
• An atom: 0.1 nanometer

Air Liquide develops advanced materials that are essential throughout the entire semiconductor manufacturing process.

Hundreds of steps are required to manufacture semiconductors from a silicon wafer.

These steps include: etching and deposition.

Etching allows for the creation of electrical circuits.

To successfully perform deep etching at the nanometric scale with optimal reliability, Air Liquide designs advanced etching materials.

Another fundamental step: deposition.

Deposition is used to connect the components of the electrical circuit.

To achieve deposition at the nanometer scale, Air Liquide develops advanced materials known as precursors.

Etching and deposition are repeated hundreds of times with other processing steps to create the chips.

And behind these tiny, essential components are Air Liquide's advanced materials.