Dekoboko in semiconductor manufacturing

[Warren Smith]

After hating this word for years, I finally found the perfect translation for "凸凹" in the context of semiconductor manufacturing (at least in the specific context wherein I see it the most): "non-planarity". While in retrospect this translation is pretty obvious, I thought I would post it for others who might hate this word as much as I have hated it until today, who might have been as blind to this obvious solution as I have been.

 

Yoroshiku,

Warren Smith (a former semiconductor engineer, sighing with relief...)

[Marc Adler]

2009/7/3 Warren Smith <warren...@comcast.net>:

> After hating this word for years, I finally found the perfect translation
> for "凸凹" in the context of semiconductor manufacturing (at least in the
> specific context wherein I see it the most): "non-planarity". While in

Nice!

--
Marc Adler
www.adlerpacific.com
nirebloga.wordpress.com
mudawwanatii.wordpress.com
blogsheli.wordpress.com

[Minoru]

What kind of problems do you see in:

surface roughness
surface waviness
surface undulation
non-flatness

Minoru Mochizuki

[Warren Smith]

They all strike my ear as decidedly non-idiomatic in this industry, and
actually misleading. The "dekoboko" is not roughness, per say, but rather
steps in the morphology of the semiconductor components that cause poor step
coverage in subsequent deposition processes. ("Roughness" seems more
microscopic than that.) "Waviness" doesn't catch this concept at all, and I
think I would get laughed at if I used "undulation" in this context.
"Non-flatness" is closer -- but the problem with dekoboko is solved through
a "planarizing" process, not a "flattening" process, so "non-planarity" is
more idiomatic.

Your suggestions would all work in other contexts, of course, but for
problems with morphology in semiconductor processing, "non-planarity" will
be my choice every time. In fact, appealing to the Googocracy, I see get
69000 hits for ("Non-planar" or "non-planarity") and "Semiconductor", and
while there are plenty of hits for "undulation" and "semiconductor" as well,
these mostly refer to different phenomena from undesirable dekoboko caused
by device morphology. Thanks for the suggestions, though.

Warren

---------------
Minoru asked:

[Kirill Sereda]

>>Your suggestions would all work in other contexts, of course, but for
problems with morphology in semiconductor processing, "non-planarity" will
be my choice every time.

In addition, there are a few others:

(1) [surface] irregularities
(2) irregular [topographical] features
(3) irregular topographies

E.g. US Pat. No. 5468681 to Pasch of LSI Logic Corporation:
"...by better conforming to surface irregularities (non-planarities) of the
substrate the interposer prevents "amplification" of (transmitting of) the
non-planarity as "seen" by the die to be attached to the substrate."

As shown by the example above, "non-planarity" can indeed be used as a
countable nound to refer to individual features, but I'd rather use it as an
uncountable noun to refer to the _degree_ of deviation from perfect
planarity.

Kirill