Hot Wall Isothermal RTP for Gate Oxide Growth and Nitridation

Abstract

ABSTRACTA new system that incorporates many benefits of large batch furnaces (high quality films, growth of wet and dry oxides, chlorine capability, and low cost) into a single wafer processing module has been developed at SVG Thermal Systems. The problems associated with wafer temperature measurement and control in traditional lamp based RTP systems are avoided by utilizing a hot wall isothermal processing chamber. Unique fixturing is used to minimize thermal stress on the wafer during ramping. High quality gate oxides ranging in thickness from 20Å to 40Å have been grown in this system using both wet and dry oxidation ambients, with and without chlorine. Thin oxides grown in dry oxygen had 1-sigma uniformities in the range of 0.72-0.95%, while oxides grown in oxygen/HCl (1-3%) had uniformities of 0.80%. Steam grown oxides demonstrated growth rates of 100Å/min at 900°C and uniformities of 0.62%. Dry oxides annealed in NO and N2O had peak nitrogen incorporation levels ranging from 0.5 to 5.1 atomic percent depending on anneal ambient, temperature and time.