Please answer the following questions:

1. What features of integrated circuits have enabled them to revolutionize modern electronics?

2. What are the industries that depend most heavily on integrated circuits?

3. How is solid crystal silicon formed from molten silicon?

4. What makes a material a semiconductor? What are dopants?

5. Integrated circuits contain a maze of interconnected, microscopic switches called transistors. What is the function of these transistors?

6. Explain how a pair of complementary metal oxide semiconductor transistors work. What are n-channel transistors and p-channel transistors? What are source and drain regions? What role does the gate electrode play?

7. Describe the process by which integrated circuits are designed. How do the designs make the transition from computer to chip?

8. Why must the environment in which integrated circuits are manufactured be as dust-free as possible?

9. Name the four basic techniques used in manufacturing circuits.

10. At the beginning of the manufacturing process, silicon wafers are placed in a high temperature oxidation furnace to grow a layer of silicon dioxide. What common process is similar? Why is the layer of silicon dioxide valuable?

11. What purpose does photolithography serve in the integrated circuit manufacturing process? Explain this procedure.

12. How are dopant ions added to wafers?

13. Why is a layer of silicon nitride deposited over the silicon dioxide?

14. How is each new mask perfectly aligned to the pattern already on the wafer?

15. What is the advantage of dry-etching?

16. What feature of the integrated circuit allows modern computers to be very fast? What role does insulating material between transistors play?

17. How are electrical circuits incorporated into the chip? How is the chip connected to wires from the outside world?