Chartered Semi-conductors

I'm taking a module in Physics of Semiconductors processing. Doesn't mean anything for you, does it? Basically it's a module with all the processes in order to build transitors, resistors, capacitors and finally entire chips (used in you laptops as RAM, processing Unit or whatever). And so what about it?

The particularity of this module is that my lecturer is from the industry meaning that is working every day as a Engineer for Chartered Semiconductors (click on the image to a link to their website), a company making wafers before selling them to companies like Intel or AMD. Chartered is a worlwide company employing more than 6,000 employees only in Singapore where its main manufacturing warehouses are located and we add the opportunity to visit it during our last lecture.

First thing to do: passing all the security procedures: no cameras, no laptops, no thumbdrive, to cellphone allowed, and we also add to give out passport to get a pass. Then we started our 1hour-visit.

We pass throught a corridor where were hanged to the walls the patents of the company: 1st patent, 50th patent, 100th patent, ..., 600th patent.... According to our lecturer Chartered Semiconductors has actually more than 800 patents. Always be at the heigth of the technology in not only a catch phrase it's also compulsory to survive in this industry.

Second step: the clean room. I don't know if I should call that a clean room because of how big it was: 15m wide by 100m long...which we were observing through a window. Telling you that I was excited because I'll have to use a 4 by 4m clean room in my final year back at INSA in France will maybe you realize how I felt. We reviewed all the machines we've seen on slides during our past lectures: wet etch, dry etch, CVD, PVD, Furnace, Photolithography. Our lecturer was explaining to us step by step what the machines where for. It was really interactive especially because of his usual sense of humor: "The atmosphere inside is controled, the humidity is stabilized to 40%, people are wearing these special suits to prevent contamination and electrostatic discharges" and because people were just gazing at the people inside he said "Hey don't worry they are humans, they are normal persons like you and me".

"Gazing at people inside", everybody was doing that, I was like being at the NASA, seeing high-tech machines, very expensive high-machines... The technicians inside were handling racks of boxes of wafers (25wafers per box) that Chartered is selling for 1000$ US (for 1 single wafers). Just in front of us there were millions of euros of wafers, and machines worthing dozens of millions of euros....

It was really amazing even though I realized that working in a clean room like that might be boring. That's why this job is devoted to technicians that are handling the boxes from one machine to another, press a button and wait for the process to be finished.

We ended the "interactive class" by doing one hour of lecture in a conference room on the Engineers' floor. I call it like that because it's the place where Engineers work for Chartered: a huge single room with clusters (like a calling center) and work stations surrounded by small conference rooms designed for 15 pers up to 50 persons. It was weird to see for the first time the kind of place where I'm likely to work. I was amazed by the clean room and then disappointed by seeing what job were doing the technicians. I was disappointed by the Engineers' room with all its work stations which look like a calling center but hopefully I won't be disappointed by the job Engineers are doing...