"The Evolution of Silicon Semiconductor Technology, "

In the years 1952 through 1977, silicon and germanium semiconductor materials and process technology progressed beyond the wildest dreams of the pioneer workers. Since the transistor was only invented in December 1947, the time period of this review covers most of the history of semiconductors. Except during the early years, most of the significant advances and technology have been concerned with silicon. The Electrochemical Society has provided the central technical forum for reporting progress dealing with semiconductor materials and process technology through its publications, semi-annual meetings, and technical symposia.
In this review, after the events associated with the invention and early developments of semiconductor materials and devices were summarized, some general aspects of the technology have been discussed. These items, which have been in a continuing state of development and improvement up to the present date, include bulk processing, surface treatments, and materials analysis. Next, the discussion has been based on key milestones involving the development of new concepts in semiconductor device structures. These include the basic diffused transistor, integrated circuits, new MOS devices, and new integrated circuit structures. All of these discussions have been oriented toward the contributions of important materials and process developments which enabled the new device concepts to be realized.
Considerations of present day, state-of-the-art technology involving small geometry, high packing density integrated circuits were then summarized. These include discussions of new processes primarily established since 1970 which have provided the basis for the tremendous advances in large scale integration. Some of these processes are ion implantation, various deposited dielectric films, advanced metallization systems and polycrystalline film technology, plasma and ion beam processing, and assembly and packaging. The most important developments in regard to today's and future very-large-scale integration have been observed to be lithographic techniques and these have been summarized. Finally some future directions and trends in semiconductor technology have been briefly presented.
If an attempt is made to specify how materials and process technology has been able to contribute as it has to the so-called electronics or semiconductor revolution, a few key observations may be made. One is the single crystal approach to the technology. Another is that all advances have involved the highest degree of control in material purity and structure, even though size and complexity have increased at a rapid rate. Similarly, processes and process reactants have been controlled extremely well
At the same time, the materials and processes used in semiconductor technology have, for the most part, remained remarkably simple, the basic materials consisting often of only the elements silicon, oxygen, and aluminum (plus small amounts of the dopants such as phosphorus and boron). Finally, a sophisticated level of selective, chemical removal of materials has been accomplished. All these factors, plus the ingenuity and common sense of the many semiconductor scientists and engineers, have provided technology advances over the past twenty-five years that were unprecedented previously and may not occur again in the future.