Intel Mask Operation: An Inside Look at a Critical Manufacturing Step

Around the corner from Intel’s Santa Clara, California, headquarters is an unassuming building that houses a critically important step in the process of manufacturing chips: the Intel Mask Operation. A mask is a six-by-six-inch piece of quartz, a quarter-inch thick, that’s a template or master copy used to print circuitry onto a silicon wafer. (Credit: Intel Corporation) More on manufacturing at Intel: