CMOS-based chips are the most common IC chips in the electronics industry. The digital revolution that produced personal computers, Internet networks, and telecommunications strongly drives the demands of CMOS IC chips. In this chapter, four complete CMOS processes are examined. First is the CMOS process from the early 1980s, with only one layer of aluminum alloy interconnection. Next is the CMOS with a four-layer aluminum alloy interconnection used in the 1990s. After that is an advanced CMOS process with copper and low-κ interconnections, used in the first decade of the 2000s, and the last is the state-of-the-art CMOS technology with high-κ metal gates (HKMGs), stress engineering, and copper low-κ interconnections.

Memory chips are one of most important parts of IC products. They are also important drivers of IC technological developments. The manufacturing processes of array cells of DRAM and NAND flash chips are quite different from CMOS processes. Thus, two sections of this chapter are dedicated to describing their processes. The periphery devices of both DRAM and NAND flash chips are very similar to normal CMOS processes.