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Semeconductor 半导体
the-semiconductor-ecosystem
半导体行业组成：
- Chip Intellectual Property (IP) Cores
- Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Tools
- 该行业由三个美国供应商主导–Cadence、Mentor（现在是西门子的一部分）和Synopsys
- 一个使用这些EDA工具的大型工程团队需要2-3年的时间来设计一个复杂的逻辑芯片
- 随着芯片变得越来越复杂，开始插入人工智能辅助工具来自动化加快芯片设计流程。
- Specialized Materials
- Silicon wafers(硅晶晶圆) – and to make those they need crystal growing furnaces
- Over 100 Gases are used – bulk gases (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, argon, helium), and other exotic/toxic gases (fluorine, nitrogen trifluoride, arsine, phosphine, boron trifluoride, diborane, silane, and the list goes on…)
- Fluids (photoresists光刻胶, top coats涂料, CMP slurries)
- Wafer handling equipment, dicing
- Wafer Fab Equipment (WFE)
- Five companies dominate the industry – Applied Materials, KLA, LAM, Tokyo Electron and ASML
- These are some of the most complicated (and expensive) machines on Earth
- “Fabless” Chip Companies
- Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs)
- Chip Foundries
- Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT)
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