Semiconductors are materials with properties that range between those of conductors and insulators. Metals are good conductors of heat and electricity as the electrons are so closely placed. A small amount of electricity can trigger conduction. Rubber, wood, plastic are the other extreme. It is difficult for these to either conduct heat or electricity. There are some materials which lie in-between, for example silicon. They start conducting when a certain amount of electricity is applied to them. In other words, they are half-conductors or semi-conductors.

The basic raw material to make integrated circuits (ICs) or chips is silicon. Silicon is abundantly available on the earth. However, it is contaminated by other elements such as oxygen, aluminium, magnesium. To make silicon worthy for the chips, it should have purity of 99.999999999 percentage. It is called ultra-pure silicone ready to become a silicon wafer. It can accept a thin film of layering consisting of the wiring of the ICs and other components such as transistors. Several such layers are mounted on the water. It, then forms a complex integrated circuit (IC). Once the front end is wafered, assembly is done which is another process. It is done on the backend. Both these processes completes the fabrication of the chip.

Semiconductor fabrication in addition require 1200 raw materials and ingredients sourced from different companies. Apart from ultra-pure silicon, the fabrication unit requires germanium, gallium arsenide and indium phosphide.

Semiconductor industry requires ultrapure water every day. It can use 15 million tonnes of ultrapure water everyday. When 3000 litres of regular water is processed, it gives us 1000 litres of ultrapure water. Semiconductor units consume water that is consumed by several thousand households. Water supply should be continuous, and power supply too should be uninterrupted. These factories consume power which is consumed by several thousand homes per year. They in fact consume more power than automobile and oil companies.

The fabrication units are located near the ports to facilitate quick and easy transport. The product is transported in sanitised containers.

A crude silicon water is subjected to 1500-2000 steps before it turns out to be a fully functional semiconductor.

Semiconductors are used in spaceships and rockets. They are used in LEDs and bulbs. All devices these days have ICs — communication devices, entertainment devices and several appliances. Everything from a bulb to a power plant uses a large number of semiconductors. They are of varying shapes and sizes.

Semiconductor chips take from 4 to 11.8 billion transistors. There is a demand for miniature chips. Sizes start at 20,000 nm(nanometres). Commonly used chips range between 65 nm to 3nm. Legacy node chips are 65 nm and above. They are used in bigger devices. There are smaller and newer nodes such as 40 nm, 28 nm, 7nm and 3 nm. They are used in laptops, computers and cell-phones. A large number of chips are required for 5G devices and future telecom networks. Sophisticated chips are needed for IoT and AI-run devices.