Getters in silicon

Abstract

Gettering of rapidly diffusing metallic impurities and structural defects in silicon which is the main material for IC fabrication, high-power high-voltage devices and neutron doped silicon has been studied. Structural defect based getters and gas phase getters based on chlorine containing compounds have been analyzed. Formation of structural defect based getters requires producing intrinsic sources of dislocation generation and precipitate/dislocation agglomerate formation. We show that dislocations are generated at microcrack mouths and form a low-mobility dislocation network at inactive wafer sides. In the latter case the defects are generated in the wafer region adjacent to the active layer of the electronic component. The generation of intrinsic getters is based on the decomposition of the supersaturated oxygen solid solution in silicon which favors the formation of a complex defect system in silicon that consists of various precipitate/dislocation agglomerates. Stacking faults also form, i.e., oxide precipitates with Frank’s dislocation loop clouds. Two intrinsic getter formation methods have been considered: one is related to oxygen impurity drain from the wafer surface region and the other implies accurate control of vacancy distribution over wafer thickness. We have analyzed the effect of getters as defect structures on the reduction of the mechanical stress required for dislocation generation onset which may eventually determine the mechanical strength of silicon wafers. The mechanism of impurity and defect gettering by gas phase medium with chlorine-containing compound additions has been considered. We show that silicon atom interaction with chlorine in the surface wafer region at high temperatures may cause the formation of vacancies which may penetrate to the specimen bulk with some probability. This leads to the case ∆Сv > 0 and ∆Ci ≤ 0, which changes the composition and density of the microdefects. Examples have been given for practical use of heat treatment of silicon wafers in a chlorine-containing atmosphere during oxide film application with the aim to dissolve microdefects, drain rapidly diffusing impurities from crystal bulk and prevent the formation of generation/recombination centers during device fabrication and silicon neutron doping.