Photolithography: How Light Draws a Computer Chip

Computer chips are built through repeated cycles that use light to place tiny patterns on silicon. Follow a wafer through photoresist coating, reticle exposure, development, etching, deposition, and alignment, then enter the extreme-ultraviolet systems used for some of the smallest critical features. Inside this episode: - Why chipmaking depends on many precisely aligned layers - Coating a wafer with light-sensitive photoresist - Projecting a reticle pattern and developing the image - Etching, deposition, implantation, and repetition - Extreme ultraviolet light, vacuum, mirrors, and contamination control Sources include the National Institute of Standards and Technology, ASML and Intel process material, and Semiconductor Industry Association documentation. This episode is a researched narrative summary. Historical records may be incomplete, translated differently, or interpreted differently by scholars. We distinguish documented facts, estimates, disputed interpretations, and later stories where material. Corrections are logged and incorporated into future editions. Follow Inside the Manufacturing Process for more journeys through the factories behind modern life.