Institut Teknologi Bandung

Engineering Physics Unfolded Professionally (Epsilon) was held to give various insights on the professional world of engineering physics. Epsilon Vol. 1 was held on 11 July 2021 with the theme The Development and Practical Usage of Instrumentation and Control for Future Transportation, its summary can be read on Instagram: @berkembang.hmft.

Chip is the main component of all types of devices that perform computational functions such as laptops and cellphone. Generally, a computer device is composed of three main components, that is processing (CPU), memory (RAM), and storage (SSD and HDD). "These computing devices are the backbone of the nowadays digital world," explained Ikhtiar.

Based on their conductivity properties, materials are divided into a conductor (conduct electricity), insulator (does not conduct electricity), and semiconductor. Although it is called a semiconductor product, in reality, these three types of materials are needed to produce a functional chip.

In a single chip, there are many types of material. Transistor, which is mainly composed of semiconductor, can reach several billion in a single chip. These transistors are then connected to each other using conductors to send a binary signal (1010). To prevent a short circuit from happening, insulator materials are needed as a cover for conductor material.

As a representative of material technologists, Ikhtiar explained that in the semiconductor industry his job is like a chef. That is preparing the chip or silicon wager with the ingredients from the periodic table. "We try to combine these elements, try it one by one systematically. Then we evaluate which one has the most potential," said a man which was born in Palu.

According to Iktiar, the United State of America is the referential axis of the world's semiconductor industry. He explained that in the USA many companies stimulate the growth of the semiconductor industry. "Although semiconductor companies like Intel can design their own chip, they still need other companies to provide them with chip manufacturing capabilities," explained Ikhtiar.

In addition to manufacturing equipment companies, other orientations of semiconductor companies are circuit design and software development for circuit design. These companies usually sell their software to big companies like Intel.

"This chip manufacturing process is very long, from research, design, and manufacture to finally become a commercial product that delivered on our hand. It could be said that I work on the exploration side or upstream side of semiconductor if I were to use the oil and gas analogy," explained Ikhtiar.

Reporter: Amalia Wahyu Utami (Engineering Physics 2020)
Translator: Favian Aldilla R (Civil Engineering, 2019)