VLSI DESIGN

EE 401
WEEK 3 & 4

1
VLSI Materials

2
Silicon Dioxide (SiO2)

3
 Silicon Dioxide (SiO2)
• A critically important material in IC processing
Properties:
- Excellent Electrical Insulator
- Exceptionally good Adhesive
properties
-Can easily be grown on the silicon wafer or deposited on
top of it
- Also called ‘Quartz Glass’ or simply ‘Glass’

4
Silicon Dioxide (SiO2)

5
 Silicon Dioxide (SiO2)
• Two types of SiO2 layers:
– Thermal Oxide: Formed by the reaction:
Si + O2 = SiO2
Using Heat as a catalyst
SILICON REQUIRED FOR THE PROCESS IS OBTAINED FROM THE
SILICON WAFER ITSELF. THUS WAFER THICKNESS REDUCES AS A
RESULT OF THIS COATING
XSi = 0.46XOX

This process is also called Dry Oxidation

The process is slow, thou high grade oxide is obtained

6
 Silicon Dioxide (SiO2)
• Faster oxide growth rate is obtained by Wet Oxidation
process
• Here steam and oxygen gas is passed over the Silicon
wafer layer to get the following chemical reaction:
Si + 2 H2O = SiO2 + 2 H2
• This chemical reaction would require presence of certain
chemicals like Nitrogen and Chlorine also as catalysts
• THERMAL OXIDE IS A FORM OF ‘NATIVE OXIDE’ i.e
OXIDES THAT ARE CREATED WHEN THE SURFACE IS
EXPOSED TO OXYGENATED ATMOSPHERE

7
 Silicon Dioxide (SiO2)
• Increased temperatures raise the rate of thermal oxide
growth, typical temperatures 800 to
1100 OC!
• Most oxide layers in VLSI are grown over the surfaces
where no Silicon is available for thermal oxides!
• In such cases we create SiO2 molecules using gaseous
reactions and then deposit them onto such surfaces
• This techniques is called CVD (CHEMICAL VAPOR
DEPOSITION) and the resulting oxides are called CVD
Oxides

8
9
Silicon Nitride (Si3N4)

10
 Silicon Nitride (Si3N4)

• Also called Nitride

• Excellent Barrier to most atoms
• Ideal for Overglass protective layers
• Excellent Electrical Isolator
• Very high Dielectric constant 7.8!
• This makes this the most suitable material for Oxide-
Nitride ON sandwich exclusively used in DRAM cells

11
Polycrystal Silicon/
Polysilicon/ Poly

12
 Polycrystal Silicon (Poly)
• Deposition of Silicon atoms on top of an amorphous
SiO2 layer results in the formation of small
crystallites which are small regions of silicon crystals
• This happens due to non-availability of a reference
crystal
• This is called Polycrystal Silicon or Polysilicon or just
Poly
• Universally used as the gate material in FETs
• It can be doped
• It adheres well to Silicon dioxide
• It can be coated with a high refractory metal such as
Ti or Pt to reduce the sheet resistance

13
 Polycrystal Silicon (Poly)
• CMOS integrated circuits can’t be made without
Poly!
• Chemically the reaction involving Silane gas is:
SiH4 → Si + 2 H2
• This is performed at temperatures around 500 to
600OC

14
Metals

15
 Metal of Choice: Aluminum
• Most commonly used metal
• Can be heated and evaporated in a vacuum
chamber and the flux thus used for wafer
coating
• Good Adhesion characteristics
• Easy to pattern as its not that hard
• Considerably good conductivity
• BUT SUFFERS FROM ELECTROMIGRATON!

16
ELECTROMIGRATION in
Aluminum

17
 Doped Silicon Layers:
Ion-Implantation

Energy Level of ions

when they hit the wafer
=100 to 200 keV

18
Ion-Implantation

19
 Ion Implantation
• The slowing mechanism damages the crystal
and places the dopants at random locations
• To place the dopants at proper locations
within the crystal lattice and to heal the
crystal, the wafer is heated in an anneal step
• The dopants redistribute a little during the
anneal step because of a process called
particle diffusion

20
Chemical & Mechanical
Polishing (CMP)
Chemical Etching, Mechanical Sanding

21
Photolithography

22
Photoresist Coating

23
The Exposing

24
Positive Photoresists: Grooves

25
 Oxides & Etching

Reactive Ion Itch (RIE)

Gaseous Plasma Formed by an Inert Gas Like Argon (Ar)
26
Doped Silicon Patterns

27
Individual Exposing: The Wafer
Stepper

The Step & Repeat Process

Test Sites
Wafer Probes
28
Registration Tragets
 Clean Rooms
• The lithographic Process is very sensitive to dust
particles
• Lithography is performed in clean rooms
• These rooms use HIGH EFFICIENCY PARTICULATE
AIR (HEPA) FILTERS
• 99.97% effective filters in removing dust particles
with dimensions 0.5µm or larger
• CLASS X clean room would mean that there are less
than X particles per cubic foot with diameter greater
than 0.5 microns
• Critical Sites in VLSI Fabrication Zone have ratings
of CLASS 1!

29