SILICON PROCESS BALANCING ACT FOR VLSI.

The act of heating and cooling a silicon wafer in order to perform thermal diffusion and oxidation can introduce or produce point defects, dissolved impurities, microdefects and strain. In addition, the silicon surface bonding arrangements can be altered. To produce device quality surface layers it is necessary to balance the high temperature processes with respect to their impact on defect growth, oxygen precipitation, and impurity gettering. These phenomena are strongly influenced by how the dynamic balance of vacancies and silicon self-interstitials is maintained during high temperature processing.

Duke Scholars

Author Richard B. Fair Electrical and Computer Engineering