Computer chips, also known as integrated circuits, are used in a wide range of electronic equipment in the 21st century. All of the digital devices that we rely on every day, such as computers and mobile phones, are reliant on integrated circuits in order to function. There are a number of production methods used in the fabrication of computer chips, with photo chemical etching playing an important role in some components. A number of materials have been studied with regard to chip manufacture since the 1940s, with the semiconductors of the periodic table identified early on as being the most likely materials. Copper oxide was used first, which proceeded to germanium and silicon, which is still in wide use today. The key stages that are use in the fabrication of integrated circuits using these materials are imaging, deposition, and etching.
Computer chips are made from a number of overlapping layers, each of which is normally a different colour. Layer masks and diffusion layers are also often used, with components constructed from a specific combination of these layers depending on their architecture. Circuit boards share many similarities with integrated circuits, which are in many ways more tightly controlled and smaller versions of similar mechanisms. The circuit board industry developed party due to the availability of photo chemical etching, a process that is still in use today in a number of industry sectors. The fabrication of integrated circuits also uses a number of process that are very similar to these photo techniques, with layers of material fabricated much like a photographic process.
During the fabrication process, high frequency ultraviolet photons are used to create the patterns for each layer. While computer chips are common in the 21st century, the processes used in their fabrication are highly complex and expensive. The original methods of photo chemical etching that gave birth to the circuit board industry were influential in the development of integrated circuits, which use a number of fabrication techniques that build from basic photo etching and use advanced processes such as copper interconnects, Low K dielectric insulators, and strained silicon.