Agus Tjandra

Quality and reliability of oxide by low thermal budget rapid thermal oxidation

In order to meet increasing requirement for low thermal budget oxidation in memory and logic applications, RadOx™, previously known as in-situ steam generation (ISSG) oxidation, processes of low thermal budgets were developed. In this paper, oxides obtained by 700°C soak and 900–1050°C spike RadOx™ processes are presented. Sidewall growth behavior in STI-type structures were characterized and showed no bird’s beak encroachment by the developed oxidation processes. Basic bulk oxide (40Å) integrity and reliability characteristics were compared to the 1050°C soak RadOx™ reference. Using planar metal-on-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors as the test vehicles, flat-band voltage (V<inf>fb</inf>), interface trap density (D<inf>it</inf>), leakage current, and stress-induced leakage current (SILC) were measured. V<inf>fb</inf> shift of less than 20mV and D<inf>it</inf> less than 2×10¹¹/cm² were observed from the low temperature soak and spike oxides. Leakage currents from fresh devices and after high current stressing (0.1A/cm²) were comparable to the reference oxide.

High Productivity Single Wafer Radical Oxidation System

This paper introduces a high productivity single wafer radical oxidation system developed for ≤90nm device node. Todays semiconductor device manufacturers face dual challenges of increased technical complexity at virtually every process step, and fast introduction of new products with minimal cost. Up until now, furnaces have satisfied the thermal oxidation requirements in most fabs. The scaling of advanced devices requires higher quality oxides, tighter process control, and smaller thermal budgets at significantly reduced overall processing cost. RadOx™processes have already demonstrated advantages in a variety of applications for current devices, and have been well accepted by many device manufacturers. The availability of RadOx™processes on a reliable, small-footprint platform with reduced pressure capability will enable the technical advantages of single-wafer radical oxidation and the manufacturing requirements for todays economic environment. The Applied Vantage®platform has already gained wide acceptance for implant and silicide anneals, and with the introduction of Applied Vantage®RadOx™, the suite of applications is extended to include reduced pressure processes such as RadOx™. Process and system performance will be presented in this paper with emphasis on the chamber & platform technology elements that enable single-wafer radical oxidation on an industry-proven, cost-effective platform.

RTP uniformity improvement through simulation

Some RTP chamber non-uniformity is due to the lamp arrangement geometry. An internally written simulation program was written to reproduce this non-uniformity. The results of the simulation were successfully tested against experimental results. The simulation then lead to finding lamp types and lamp combination recipes which decrease overall non-uniformity in the RTP chamber by 40%