Title :
Suppression of metal contamination by gettering
Author :
Teo, Jocelyn W Y ; Lim, H.W. ; Jin, Y. ; Huang, J.H. ; Chew, W.C. ; Leong, C.K. ; Gn, F.H. ; Li, M.-F. ; Su, G.
Author_Institution :
Chartered Semicond. Manuf. Ltd., Singapore
Abstract :
Starting-material-related defects and line processes are often blamed for high reliability failure rates of gate oxides. Polished wafers are first observed to have higher gate oxide reliability failure rates compared to epitaxial wafers, leading to the initial presumption that this difference in failure rate is attributed to starting material issues. Further investigations revealed that it is not silicon surface imperfections that are the cause of the high gate oxide reliability failures. Instead, results pinpoint metal contamination as the culprit for high reliability failures. However, metal contamination due to processing of epitaxial wafers is suppressed by the gettering effect of oxygen precipitates inside the silicon substrate
Keywords :
dielectric thin films; failure analysis; getters; integrated circuit reliability; integrated circuit testing; integrated circuit yield; polishing; precipitation; surface contamination; Si; SiO2-Si; epitaxial wafer processing; epitaxial wafers; failure rate; gate oxide reliability failures; gate oxides; gettering; gettering effect; high reliability failures; line processes; metal contamination; metal contamination suppression; oxygen precipitates; polished wafers; reliability failure rates; silicon substrate; silicon surface imperfections; starting material issues; starting-material-related defects; Capacitors; Computer aided manufacturing; Contamination; Epitaxial growth; Gettering; Materials reliability; Semiconductor device manufacture; Semiconductor materials; Silicon; Testing;
Conference_Titel :
Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, 2001. IPFA 2001. Proceedings of the 2001 8th International Symposium on the
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-6675-1
DOI :
10.1109/IPFA.2001.941489
