What is the Difference Between Wafer and Chip in Electronics?

What is the Difference Between Wafer and Chip in Electronics?

Smaller and less expensive than ever, wafers are the semiconductor industry standard for many applications, including mobile devices and the growing trend of “wearables”. However, for some applications, a silicon chip is not only smaller but less expensive than a wafer. 

Wafer and chip are two very different types of semiconductors that play the role of a part of a circuit or a device, or an integrated circuit (IC). The two types of semiconductors are widely used in a variety of electronics products. As a result, understanding how to use these materials is essential for becoming a professional in electronics. This article will introduce you to the various types of wafer and chip in electronics and will provide tips to how are wafers made and their uses. 

The silicon process has evolved from being a one-step manufacturing process to a three-step one. High-end, multi-product wafer facility manufacturers are creating large-scale, multi-product lines. At the same time, the manufacture of integrated circuits is becoming more complex, requiring more advanced processes to provide higher margin and wider customer verticals.

Wafer is a material that has a high density and its die size is small in comparison to the chip size. Wafer is made by melting metal in a furnace to form a continuous, flat metal layer. The metal layer is then hardened into a solid form by annealing or physical cooling.

Wafer-level packaging is an emerging packaging method that enables low-cost, high-density packaging, using a wafer with tiny circuit-board compartments. These compartments are connected with a basic connection, which are manufactured on the wafers. If a wafer is used for the chip, this packaging method is called "chip-on-wafer packaging", and if a wafer is used for the circuit-boards, it is called "wafer-on-wafer packaging". These hole-free packages are compact and suitable for use in many fields such as medical equipment, portable equipment, mobile communications, personal information management and computer chips.

All electronics now start with a chip and a wafer, and anyone who wants to build an electronic device can easily find the right chips and a wafer online. The chip and wafer industry has become highly competitive, and these days, it's not unusual to see several different chip and wafer suppliers competing for a single customer. The main reason that this competition exists is that the electronics industry is highly fragmented, and companies only buy from suppliers who can deliver the products with the shortest lead time.

In conclusion, wafers and chips are both used in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. However, the key difference between wafers and chips is that a chip is a thin slice of a silicon wafer, which is disc-shaped. A wafer is a thin slice of a silicon ingot that is cylindrical.