Wafer Manufacturing

Acknowledgement

This book is a culmination of many years of research on the subject, and has had the help of many colleagues, students, and mentors along the path of my academic career. Dr. Tai‐ran Hsu, who gave me an opportunity as an assistant professor at San Jose State University, is a mentor and an inspiration when he endeavored to conduct research and study in MEMS in 1991, with the outcome of a book in MEMS (McGraw‐Hill 2002). My research at Stony Brook University (SBU, State University of New York, SUNY) on the topic of wafer manufacturing started in 1994 when I joined SBU. I started this research with a grant from the DoE and collaborated with Dr Vish Prasad on innovative growth techniques of photovoltaic wafers, and slicing using a slurry wiresaw, which was a new machine tool for slicing ingots to wafers at that time. The research continued to be funded by NSF and industrial grants. The collaboration with Dr Fu‐pen Chiang, who is a reputed and renowned researcher in optical metrology, led to work in novel wafer surface measurements and real‐time monitoring of wire wear and wire web using optical metrology. Many PhD and MS students of mine worked on pioneering modeling and research on slurry wiresaws and wafer manufacturing that led to some of the contents of this book. I am grateful to have the dedication and contributions of Drs Milind Bhagavat (who started the concept of this book with me), Liqun Zhu, Songbin Wei, Sumeet Bhagavat, Chunhui Chung (who is a coauthor ...