EE202M: SOLID STATE DEVICES

Swapnil Bhuktare*
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
IIT Tirupati
*email: swapnil@iittp.ac.in; office: DB2115

Wafer Manufacturing, Cleaning

 Silicon
• Second most abundant element in the earth’s crust
(28% by mass)
• Ideal properties of the Si/SiO2 interface
• Thermal stability
• Good insulating properties of SiO2
• Use of SiO2 as a mask in several processes
• Stone age, bronze age, iron age, silicon age
 Si wafer Manufacturing
• Naturally occurring minerals highly impure
• Refinement & conversion into crystalline form
• Start with quartzite (chemically SiO2, sand type)
• Convert quartzite to MGS (Metallurgical Grade Si)
by heating in a furnace with a carbon source (coke
or coal) at high temperature (20000 C)
2C( solid ) + SiO2 ( solid ) → Si( liquid ) + 2CO( gas )
• Electric power source (around 13 kWh kg-1) with
submerged electrodes (arc & heat)
• Approx 98% purity MGS which will be converted to
EGS (Electronic Grade Si)
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• MGS ground to fine powder & made to react with
gaseous HCl at elevated temperatures
• Formation of several products like SiH4, SiH3Cl,
SiH2Cl2, SiHCl3, SiCl4
• SiHCl3 is liquid at room temperature & can be
purified by fractional distillation
• SiHCl3 converted to purified polysilicon by reaction
with H2 in a large reactor
2SiHCl3 ( gas ) + 2H 2 ( gas ) → 2Si( solid ) + 6 HCl( gas )
• A thin Si rod used as a nucleation surface for
deposition of Si which has ppb (1013-1014 cm-3)
impurities
• Czochralski (CZ) method to grow Si crystals
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 CZ Growth Method
• Polysilicon is melted & a single crystal seed is used
to start the growth

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• Crystal diameter controlled by the pulling rate
• Faster pulling-smaller diameter
• Dopant in the crucible to determine doping level
• Seed & crucible rotated in opposite directions for
uniform growth
• Quartz a dominant choice for crucible material
leading to incorporation of oxygen (1017-1018 cm-3)
• Graphite susceptor for mechanical support
• Carbon incorporation (1015-1016 cm-3)
• Argon ambient to avoid additional impurities
• Computer control for pull rate & heater power with
feedback system to monitor the temperature,
crystal diameter
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 Dopant Incorporation
• Addition of dopants to the melt
• Segregation of dopants between the liquid & the
solid phases
CS
• Equilibrium segregation co-efficient k0 =
CL

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• Variation of doping concentration along the crystal

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 Wafer Preparation
1) Shaping the boule to uniform diameter (grinding
with diamond wheel in lathelike machine)

2) Grinding flats along the length

Campbell, Science & Engineering of Microelectronic Fabrication

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3) Sawing the boule into individual wafers
• Diamond tipped blade
• 200 mm dia - 725 μm thickness
• Around 50 % loss (kerf loss)

4) Mechanical lapping (remove around 50 μm)

• Pressure & mixture of Al2O3, glycerine & water
• Removes taper & bow, improves flatness to ±2 μm

5) Edge rounding
• Grinding radius on edge wafers
• Diamond cutters
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6) Chemical Etching
• Immersed in the mixture of HNO3, HF & CH3COOH
• HNO3 oxidizes Si & HF etches the SiO2

• 20-25 μm etching, uniform etch rate important

7) Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP)

• Polished under pressure (20 psi) & rotated in a slurry
• Fine SiO2 particles (10 nm) in NaOH solution
• OH- radicles oxidize Si & SiO2 particles abrade it away
• Defect free surface with mirror finish

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• Wafer manufacturing processes
• A good video on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMgQ1-
HdElM

semiengineering.com
 Yield
• Wafer yield (YW)= Wafersgood/ Waferstotal
• Die yield (YD)= Diesgood/ Diestotal
• Packaging yield (YC)= Chipsgood/ Chipstotal
• Overall yield (YT)= YW • YD • YC

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austin.cc.tx.us/HongXiao/Book.htm
 Particle contaminants
• More than 75% yield loss because of defects caused by
particles on wafer
• Sources: People, machines, chemicals, process gases
• Average human being emits 5-10 million particles/min

SEM image of human hair Person with a bunny suit

• Use of ‘bunny suits’, hair nets, face masks, goggles, hand

gloves, shoes etc.
semguy.com
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pinterest.com
• Use of air showers at the entrance to the clean
room

• Use of robots for wafer handling

terrauniversal.com
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Typical clean room environment Wikipedia, nasa.gov
 Clean Water
• Water is used heavily for cleaning
• Can have several contaminants like dissolved salts,
gases, microorganisms etc.
• Typical specifications:
Parameter Value

Resistivity* > 18 MΩ cm-1 @ 250C

TOC < 30 μgm/l

Bacteria < 1 CFU/ml

Particle count (> 100 nm) < 100/l

*sodium chloride content of < 0.004 mg/l

• De-Ionized water is used (can’t be stored, used

fresh whenever required) Cleanroom Technology by Whyte
 Gases
• Gases used in various processes like chemical
reactions for deposition & etching, wafer cleaning &
drying etc.
• Purity specified as 5N or 6N

mathesongas.com
 Wafer Cleaning
• Remove particles, films (like photoresists) & trace
concentration of any other elements present
• Variety of procedures available depending upon the
type/history of the wafer
• RCA cleaning is widely used for Si
• Piranha solution (4:1 or 7:1 mixture of H2SO4 &
H2O2) used for removing photoresists
• Oxygen plasma may also be used
 Fumehoods
• Type of local ventilation system
• Provide protection against toxic hazardous fumes or
vapors

• Air drawn from the

cabinet & expelled
outside
• Also useful for spill
containment

prime.erpnext.com
 RCA Cleaning
• Two step oxidizing & complexing process
• First solution (SC-1) 5 H2O : 1 H2O2 : 1 NH4OH
• Second solution (SC-2) 6 H2O : 1 H2O2 : 1 HCl
• SC-1 oxidizes organic films & complexes Group IB &
IIB metals
• Continuous etching & reoxidation to dislodge
particles from wafer surfaces
• SC-2 removes alkali ions & cations like Al+3, Fe+3 &
Mg+2 which form NH4OH insoluble hydroxides in the
SC-1 solution
• Reaction chemistry & oxidation potentials
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• Addition of ultrasonic (20-
50 kHz)/ megasonic (1
MHz) agitation for
effective particle removal
• H2O/HF step for removal of
SiO2

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• Conversion of metals into soluble ions by oxidation
• Oxidation is removing electrons from the atom &
reduction is adding electrons to the atom

(1)

(2)

• Generally (1) is driven to the right and (2) to the left so

that SiO2 is formed and M plates out on the wafer
• Good cleaning solutions drive (2) to the right since M+
is soluble and will be desorbed from the wafer surface
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• Works on the oxidation potentials

• Use of H2O2 as a strong oxidant

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