BUILDING ON THE PAST, READY FOR THE FUTURE: - MEMC

40
1979
Sony introduces the
walkman.
1981
MEMC is the first to
commercially produce
150mm wafers.
1982
Technical center
is introduced in
Edogawa-ku, Tokyo.
1983
Programmer Jaron
Lanier first coins the
term “virtual reality.”
1984
MEMC is the first
to commercialize
200mm wafers in
partnership with IBM.
1985
MEMC is the first
wafer manufacturer
to develop polysilicon
gettering.
MEMC begins construction
on its Spartanburg, South
Carolina, plant, which is
completed in 1980.
MEMC ships wafers in
the “Flip-Tran” cassette.
The “can” is sealed with
dry nitrogen to ensure
cleanliness.
MEMC pioneers epi wafers
for CMOS applications.
Japan overtakes the U.S.
as the world’s leading
semiconductor producer.
Microsoft invents windows
program.
Chunk polysilicon is melted.
Granular polysilicon is melted.
1 st
PolysIlICon getterIng
As semiconductor devices shrank in size,
they became more susceptible to deleterious
effects of metallic contamination present
in the semiconductor-device-fabrication
sequence. Besides degrading the performance
of the device, trace metals can form surface
silicides that ruin devices by disrupting the
device fabrication steps such as etching and
dopant diffusion.
MEMC was the first to commercialize
polysilicon gettering, a technique for trapping
the minute quantities of metallic contaminants
present in silicon device processing away
from the areas where the devices are to be
built. The technology, developed in 1985,
involved both internal gettering and external
gettering.