Specific Process Knowledge/Thermal Process/A1 Bor Drive-in furnace

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Boron Drive-in + Pre-dep furnace (A1)

Boron Drive-in and Pre-dep furnace (A1). Positioned in cleanroom B-1

The Boron Drive-in + Pre-dep furnace (A1) is a Tempress horizontal furnace for thermal oxidation of silicon wafers. Also boron pre-deposition/doping is done furnace. Furthermore, the furnace is used for boron drive-in after the pre-deposition or after boron ion implantation.

The furnace is mostly used for wet and dry thermal oxidation of silicon wafers. The oxidation recipes are named e.g. "WET1000" and "DRY1000", where "WET" or "DRY" indicates whether it is a wet or dry oxidation process, and the number indicates the oxidation temperature.

The purpose of the boron doping is to make conductive structures, etch stop layers etc. For pre-deposition of silicon wafers, boron-nitride source wafers are used as doping source. There are only a few source wafers available, i.e. it is not possible to dope an entire batch of 30 wafers, but both sides of the source wafers are available for doping. It is necessary to activate the source wafers before use by heating them for 1 hour at the temperature needed during the pre-deposition (but never at a temperatures lower than 1050 C). During the pre-deposition a boron phase layer is created on the silicon wafers. This layer can be removed in BHF, if argon is used instead of nitrogen for the pre-deposition (at temperatures higher then 1050 C), otherwise the wafers have to be oxidized before the BHF etch. When the boron phase layer has been removed, the wafers can go directly into the furnace again for a drive-in process with or without an oxide growth.

The Boron Drive-in and Pre-dep furnace is the top furnace tube in the furnace A-stack positioned in cleanroom B-1. The furnaces in the A-stack are the cleanest of all furnaces in the cleanroom. Please be aware of that all wafers have to be RCA cleaned before they enter the furnace, and please check the cross contamination information in LabManager, before you use the furnace. Before boron pre-deposition, also the source wafers and a dedicated carbide boat have to be RCA cleaned.

The user manual, quality control instruction and results, technical information and contact information can be found in LabManager:

Boron Drive-in and Pre-dep furnace (A1)

Process knowledge

Oxidation: look at the Oxidation page
Boron drive-in: look at the Dope with Boron page
Boron doping: look at the Dope with Boron page.

Quality Control - Parameters and Limits

Quality control (QC) for the processes "Wet1050" and "Dry1050"

QC Recipe:	Wet1050	Dry1050
H₂ flow	3 slm	0 slm
O₂ flow	2 slm	5 slm
Temperature	1050 C	1050 C
Oxidation time	30 min	100 min

QC limits	Thickness	Non-uniformity (both over a single wafer and over the boat)
Dry1050	107.3 nm - 113.3 nm	3.2 %
Wet1050	298.2 nm - 305.5 nm	3.7 %

Numbers from March 2020

Overview of the performance of the Boron Drive-in + Pre-dep furnace and some process related parameters

Purpose	Drive-in of boron Oxidation of silicon Oxidation of boron phase layers Annealing of the oxide Boron pre-depostion using source wafer	Annealing: Using N₂ Oxidation: Dry oxidation using O₂ Wet oxidation using H₂O generated by a torch
Performance	Film thickness	Dry oxide: 50 Å to ~2000 Å (it takes too long to grow a thicker oxide) Wet oxide: 50 Å to ~3 µm (it takes too long to grow a thicker oxide)
Process parameter range	Process Temperature	800-1150 ^oC
	Process pressure	1 atm
	Gasses on the system	O₂, N₂ and H₂
Substrates	Batch size	1-30 100 mm wafers (or 50 mm wafers) per run
Substrates	Substrate materials allowed	Silicon wafers (RCA cleaned)