Silicon crystals for future requirements of 300 mm wafers

Today, the main challenge in Si crystal growth development is the transition from 200 to 300 mm diameter. While the complexity of the growth process increases with larger charge size and crystal diameter, the perfection of the growth process must significantly improve to avoid any disturbances that result in structure loss during growth and, hence, cause massive material losses. With regard to the future bulk quality, radical changes may be required as the design rule approaches the size of the prevailing grown-in defect type. Therefore, grown-in defect free wafers will be required, which can be produced either directly by pulling, by wafer annealing or by epitaxy. As substrates for annealed and epitaxial wafers, nitrogen doped and fast pulled crystals provide sufficient internal gettering capability in low thermal budget device processes. Moreover, grown-in defects in nitrogen doped crystals are so small that they are easily covered during epitaxy or annealed during high temperature treatment. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.