LG Siltron makes it to world's top 3 wafer maker

2012-11-01 JH Bae

(iTers News) - Global semiconductor silicon wafer market would grow at a CAGR of 5.23% over the 2011-2015 period, according to market research firm TechNavio.

One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the capacity expansion by the semiconductor manufacturers to keep up with increasing adoption of mobile devices worldwide. However, seasonality in demand of semiconductors could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.

LG Siltron Inc. is one of the world’s top 5 silicon wafer makers, including MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., Shin-Etsu Handotai Co. Ltd., Siltronic AG, and SUMCO Corp.

At KES 2012 held in the city of Goyang, Korea from Oct. 9 to 12, Jeffrey Hwang, manager of overseas sales team with LG Siltron, gave a quick demo on a whole spectrum of chip
fabrication process from start to finish.

According to him, the first step started with a silicon in grower, putting silicon into a crucible. Then. cylindrical silicon block comes, and wafer makers like LG Siltron slices it into thin sliver of wafers and polish them as purely as possible to supply them for chip makers. The next step is wafer patterning, where chip makers pattern layers after layers of N-and P-type transistors with ion implantation as well as chemical vapor deposition.