Oxide film homogeneity provision on the surface of silicon monocrystal substrates while their thermal oxidation process

Аuthors

Kovalev A. A.^*, Tischenko L. A.^**, Antipin M. A.^***, Shakhovtsev M. M.^****

Bauman Moscow State Technical University, MSTU, 5, bldg. 1, 2-nd Baumanskaya str., Moscow, 105005, Russia

*e-mail: kovalevarta@gmail.com
**e-mail: leonid.tichenko@gmail.com
***e-mail: mr.antipin@yandex.ru
****e-mail: medbed96@gmail.com

Abstract

The article deals with the impact of the thermal oxidation process technological parameters, such as the work process temperature and the value of oxidizer reagents consumption, on the oxide film uniformity on the silicon substrate surface. It evaluates the heat-treatment furnace preheating temperature range by modelling in ANSYS with the specified boundary conditions. The homogeneity characteristic, being computed by Min-Max method, was used for homogeneity estimation. The type of silicon wafers under consideration satisfied the number of parameters, such as d = 100 mm, thickness 400 µm, the polished silicon emissivity ε = 0.89, silicon thermal conductivity λ = 31.2 W /(mK), silicon density ρ = 2.33 g / cm³. The preheating temperature range for an atmospheric thermal furnace with a silicon carbide boat is 550–700 °C. Increase in the oxide film distribution homogeneity over the silicon substrates surface due to the uniform distribution of the temperature field was observed as the result of simulation. As a consequence, chemical reactions were close in the intensity of the oxidation processes flow. Experimental validation of the homogeneity increase was obtained due to the thermal furnace boat preheating.

Optimal values of oxidant reagents (O₂, H₂O) consumption at temperatures of 1100, 1000 and 850 °С in the two-phase heating furnace (heating – dry oxidation, work process – wet oxidation) were obtained experimentally. These values allow producing wafers with high-quality silicon oxide (U < 1%).

The article gives technological recommendations on high-quality oxide film provision on the surface of monocrystal silicon wafers by furnace preheating and maintaining temperature between the thermal oxidizing processes, as well as oxidant reagents consumption values selection, allowing producing wafers with high-quality silicon oxide.

Keywords:

thermal oxidation, silicon substrates, homogeneity

References

1. Tishchenko L.A., Kovalev A.A., Chizhikov S.V. Vestnik Moskovskogo aviatsionnogo instituta, 2017, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 95-103.

2. Deal B.E. and Grove A.S. General Relationship for the Thermal Oxidation of Silicon. Journal of Applied Physics, 1965, vol. 36, no. 12, pp. 3770-3778. DOI: 10.1063/1.1713945

3. Hu S.M. New Oxide Growth Law and the Thermal Oxidation of Silicon. Journal of Applied Physics, 1983, vol. 42, no. 10, pp. 872-874. DOI: 10.1063/1.93797

4. Song Y., Dhar S., Feldman L.C. Modified Deal Grove model for the thermal oxidation of silicon carbide. Journal of Applied Physics, 2004, vol. 95, pp. 49-53. DOI: 10.1063/1.1690097

5. Erfon B., Hastie T., Johnstone I., Tibshirani R. Least Angle Regression. The Annals of Statistics, 2004, vol. 32, no. 2, рр. 407–499.

6. LeCun Y., Bottou L., Orr G., Müller K. Efficient BackProp. Neural Networks, Tricks of the Trade. Springer-Verlag London, UK, 1998, pp. 18-23. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-35289-8_3

7. Appels J., Kooi E., Paffen M., Schlorje J.J.H. and Verkuylen W.H.C.G. Local oxidation of silicon and its application in semiconductor-device technology. Philips Research Reports, 1970, vol. 25, pp. 118-132.

8. Senez V., Collard D., Ferreira P. and Baccus B. Two-Dimensional Simulation of Local Oxidation of Silicon: Calibrated Viscoelastic Flow Analysis. IEEE Trans- Elect Development, 1996, vol. 43, no. 5, pp. 720-731. DOI: 10.1109/16.491248

9. Antoniadis D.A., Rodoni M. and Dutton R.W. Impurity Redistribution in SiO₂-Si during Oxidation: A Numerical Solution Including Interfacial Fluxes. Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 1979, vol. 126, no. 11, pp. 1939-1945. DOI: 10.1149/1.2128830

10. Wagner S., Grasser T., Fischer C. and Selberherr S. An Advanced Equation Assembly Module. Engineering with Computers, 2005, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 151-163. DOI: 10.1007/s00366-005-0319-5

11. Norton F.J. Permeation of Gaseous Oxygen through Vitreous Silica. Nature, 1961, vol. 191, pp. 701. DOI: 10.1038/191701a0

12. Berezin A.S., Mochalkina O.R. Tekhnologiya i konstruirovanie integralnykh mikroskhem (The technology and design of integrated circuits), Moscow, Radio i svyaz', 1983, 232 p.

13. Vendrock P. Plasma Etching. The Electrochemical Society, 1987, vol. 21, pp. 1237-1241.

14. Kuiper A., Willemsen M., Bax J., Habraken F. Oxidation behaviour of LPCVD silicon oxynitride films. Applied Surface Science, 1988, no. 33, pp. 757-764. DOI: 10.1016/0169-4332(88)90377-7

15. Vries D. Investigation of gross die per wafer formulas. IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, 2005, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 136-139. DOI: 10.1109/TSM.2004.836656

16. O'Mara W.C., Herring R.B., Hunt L.P. Handbook of Semicondactor Silicon Technology. Noyes Publications, 1990, 795 p.

17. Yoshio N. A supplement to Semiconductor International. How to Make a Chip, 2005, pp. 122-136.

18. Laplante P.A. Comprehensive dictionary of electrical engineering. CRC Press, 2005, 786 p.

19. Widmann D., Mader H., Friedrich H. Technology of Integrated Circuits. Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co, Berlin, Germany, 2008, 342 p.