Semiconductor Fabrication

Md. Mahabub Hossain

Oxidation
Lithography &
Etching
Ion Implantation
Annealing &
Diffusion
Introduction
Silicon Growth
& Wafer
Quartz, or silica, consists of silicon dioxide
Sand contains many tiny grains of quartz
Silicon can be artificially produced by combining silica and carbon in electric furnace
Gives polycrystalline silicon (multitude of crystals)
Practical integrated circuits can only be fabricated from single-crystal material
Silicon Crystal & Growth
Growth


A solid seed crystal is rotated and
slowly extracted from a pool of
molten Si.
Requires careful control to give
crystals desired purity and
dimensions.
Czochralski process is a technique in making single-crystal silicon.
Wafer Manufacturing
The silicon crystal is sliced in ingot by using a diamond-tipped saw into thin wafers
Sorted by thickness
Damaged wafers removed during lapping
Etch wafers in chemical to remove any remaining crystal damage
Polishing smoothes uneven surface left by sawing process
Oxidation of Silicon
SiO
2
growth is a key process step in
manufacturing all Si devices
- Thick (~1m) oxides are used for field
oxides (isolate devices from one another )
- Thin gate oxides (~100 ) control MOS
devices
- Sacrificial layers are grown and removed to
clean up surfaces
The stability and ease of SiO
2
formation is one
of the reasons that Si replaces Ge as the
semiconductor of choice.

The simplest method of
producing an oxide layer
consists of heating a silicon
wafer in an oxidizing
atmosphere.
Dry oxide - Pure dry oxygen is employed
Si + O
2
SiO
2

Disadvantage
- Dry oxide grows very slowly.
Advantage
- Oxide layers are very uniform.
- Relatively few defects exist at the oxide-
silicon interface.
- It has especially low surface state charges and
thus make ideal dielectrics.
Wet oxide - Same way as dry oxides, but
steam is injected
Si +2H
2
O SiO
2
+ 2H
2
Disadvantage
-Hydrogen atoms liberated by the
decomposition of the water molecules
produce imperfections that may degrade the
oxide quality.
Advantage
-Wet oxide grows fast.
-Useful to grow a thick layer of field oxide.
Oxidation of Silicon
Si Wafers
O
2
N
2
H
2
O or TCE(trichloroethylene)
Quartz tube
Resistance-heated furnace
Flow
controller
Oxidation of Silicon
Estimation
(a) How long does it take to grow
0.1m of dry oxide at 1000
o
C ?
(b) How long will it take to grow
0.2m of oxide at 900
o
C in a wet
ambient ?
Solution:
(a) From the 1000
o
C dry curve, it
takes 2.5 hr to grow 0.1m of oxide.
(b) Use the 900
o
C wet curve only. It
would have taken 0.7hr to grow the
0.1 m oxide and 2.4hr to grow 0.3
m oxide from bare silicon. The
answer is 2.4hr0.7hr = 1.7hr.