Thermal Processing Options Focus and Specialize

摘要

Each advance in circuit density, reduction in feature size, and increase in wafer diameter has required the evolution or abandonment of traditional processes used to do the familiar or a search for alternate ways to do the unfamiliar. As architectures get denser and smaller, thermal budgets drop to evade the spread of doped regions and silicon dislocations liable to occur when wafers are heated to near-diffusion temperatures [Fig. 1). Equipment manufacturers have kept up with developing requirements. Like others, Applied Materials, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) is working on obstacles imposed by reduced features and thermal budgets.