Silicon semiconductor devices

For the manufacture of silicon semiconductor devices, oxide thicknesses of from <10 to >1000 nm are required on sHces of single-crystal silicon. These oxide layers are formed at elevated temperatures, generally at about 1000°C, in an atmosphere of either oxygen or steam. Usually the oxidation is at atmospheric pressure, but sometimes, to speed the oxidation rate, pressures of several atmospheres are used. Oxidation consumes a silicon thickness equal to about 0.4 the thickness of the oxide produced (grown). The thickness of the oxide, V (4) is approximately given by equation 1 ... 

Arsenic from the decomposition of high purity arsine gas may be used to produce epitaxial layers of III—V compounds, such as Tn As, GaAs, AlAs, etc, and as an n-ty e dopant in the production of germanium and silicon semiconductor devices. A group of low melting glasses based on the use of high purity arsenic (24—27) were developed for semiconductor and infrared appHcations. 

A semlquantltatlve meaBurement technique based on the general principles of photographic sensltometry has been developed for relative evaluation of the photosensitivity of polymer coatings (58,59). Quantitative data were obtained with a technique developed on the basis of silicon semiconductor devices technology (60). 

MD Schaeberle, DD Tuschel, PJ Treado. Raman chemical imaging of microcrystallinity in silicon semiconductor devices. J Appl Phys (submitted). 

Advantages. All characteristics listed above are advantages for some applications. Ready availability of alkali-free compositions is important for electronic applications where the presence of alkali would degrade silicon semiconductor device performance. 

Silicon is prepared commercially by heating silica and carbon in an electric furnace, using carbon electrodes. Several other methods can be used for preparing the element. Amorphous silicon can be prepared as a brown powder, which can be easily melted or vaporized. The Gzochralski process is commonly used to produce single crystals of silicon used for solid-state or semiconductor devices. Hyperpure silicon can be prepared by the thermal decomposition of ultra-pure trichlorosilane in a hydrogen atmosphere, and by a vacuum float zone process. 

The increase has, however, not been in direct proportion to the increase in the number of semiconductor devices produced, because manufacturing yields have increased dramatically since the sihcon transistor became commercially available in 1954 (see Electronic materials Semiconductors, silicon-BASEd). 

The thyristor is a semiconductor device made of germanium or silicon wafers and comprises three or more Junctions, which can be switched from the OFF state to the ON state or vice versa. Basically it is a ptipn junction, as shown in Figure 6.20(a) and can be considered as composed of two transistors with npn and pnpjunctions, as illustrated in Figure 6.20(b). It does not turn ON when it is forward biased, unlike a diode, unless there is a gate firing pulse. Thyristors are forced commutated (a technique... 

Recent texts have assembled impressive information about the production, characterisation and properties of semiconductor devices, including integrated circuits, using not only silicon but also the various compound semiconductors such as GaAs which there is no room to detail here. The reader is referred to excellent treatments by Bachmann (1995), Jackson (1996) and particularly by Mahajan and Sree Harsha (1999). In particular, the considerable complexities of epitaxial growth techniques - a major parepisteme in modern materials science - are set out in Chapter 6 of Bachmann s book and in Chapter 6 of that by Mahajan and Sree Harsha. 

A more elaborate example of induct on heating is shown in Fig. 5.8, which showsareactordesignedforthedeposition of silicon epitaxy in semiconductor devices (see Ch. 13).Thepowerissuppliedby a solid-state high-frequency (20 KHz) generator. A radiation reflector, shown in Detail A, increases the efficiency and uniformity of deposition. Pressure varies from 100 mbar to 1 atm. 

Polycrystalline Silicon (Polysilicon). Polycrystalline silicon is used extensively in semiconductor devices. It is normally produced by the decomposition of silane at low pressure (ca. 1 Torr) as follows ... 

Many applications of silicon are found in integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices and include the following (see Chs. 13-16 on applications of CVD). 

The market for silicon nitride is fast growing, particularly in structural and chemical resistance applications and as a thin film in semiconductor devices.P 1... 

A potential application is as an insulator coating on silicon in semiconductor devices. 

A widely used glass is phosphosilicate (PSG), which is used extensively in semiconductor devices as a passivation and planarization coating for silicon wafers. It is deposited by CVD by the reaction of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) (C2H50)4Si, and trimethylphosphate PO(OCH3)3, in a molecular ratio corresponding to a concentration of 5 to 7% P. Deposition temperature is usually 700°C and pressure is 1 atm. 

An important consideration in the sequence of semiconductor devices fabrication is the so-called thermal budget, a measure of both the CVD temperature and the time at that temperature for any given CVD operation. As a rule, the thermal budget becomes lower the farther away a given step is from the original surface of the silicon wafer. This restriction is the result of the temperature limitations of the already deposited materials. 

In SAM the electron beam can be focussed to provide a spatial resolution of < 12 nm, and areas as small as a few micrometers square can be scanned, providing compositional information on heterogeneous samples. For example, the energy resolution is sufficient to distinguish the spectrum of elemental silicon from that of silicon in the form of its oxide, so that a contaminated area on a semiconductor device could be identified by overlaying the Auger maps of the two forms of silicon obtained from such a specimen. 

One of the most important interfaces in semiconductor technology is the Si02/Si interface, whose properties determine the operation of metal-oxide-silicon (MOS) devices. Hydrogen is believed to play an important... 

As described earlier, the covalently bonded hydrogen, by passivating dangling bond defects and removing strained weak Si—Si bonds from the network, dramatically improves the semiconducting quality of amorphous silicon. Hence without the presence of hydrogen, effective amorphous semiconductor devices such as solar cells or thin film transistors would not be possible. Unfortunately, low defect density, high electronic quality... 

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