Cycle time and process improvement by single wafer thermal processing in production environment

We have demonstrated that cycle time reduction, accelerated yield learning and product introduction can be achieved by single-wafer processing without a major impact on wafer production cost. The oxidation mechanism reveals that the ISSG oxide growth is diffusion controlled. Our results indicate the reliability of ISSG oxide is considerably improved as the process temperature increases with respect to charge-to-breakdown (Q_bd). Such enhanced reliability of the ISSG oxide may be explained by the reduction of the dangling bonds as the oxidation temperature increases. In addition, the ISSG process improves the corner rounding of STI, which results in the elimination of the crystal defects in silicon.