Specific Process Knowledge/Thermal Process/A2 Gate Oxide furnace

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Gate Oxide furnace (A2)

The Gate Oxide furnace (A2) is a Tempress horizontal furnace for oxidation of very clean silicon wafers. For instance gate oxide layers can be grown in the furnace. A gate oxide is very thin thermal oxide located over the gate or active region of individual resistors in a MOSFET (metal-oxide field effect semiconductor transistor).

Only dry oxidation can be done in the furnace. The oxidation recipes on the furnace are named e.g. "DRY1000", where "DRY" indicates that it is a dry oxidation process, and the number indicates the oxidation temperature.

This furnace is the second furnace tube in the furnace A-stack positioned in cleanroom B-1. The Gate Oxide furnace is the cleanest of all furnaces in the cleanroom, i.e. wafers will metal bulk contanination (e.g. wafers that have exposed to plasma) are not allowed in the furnace. Please be aware of that all wafers have to be RCA cleaned before they enter the furnace, and check the cross contamination information in LabManager before you use the furnace.

The user manual, technical information and contact information can be found in LabManager:

Gate Oxide furnace (A2)

Process knowledge

Oxidation: look at the Oxidation page
Annealing: look at the Annealing page

Overview of the performance of the Gate Oxide furnace and some process related parameters

Purpose	Oxidation of silicon wafers (e.g. gate oxide layers)	Oxidation: Dry oxidation using O₂
Performance	Film thickness	Dry SiO₂: ~ 0 nm to 300 nm (it takes too long to grow thicker dry oxide layers)
Process parameter range	Process Temperature	800-1150 ^oC
	Process pressure	1 atm (no vacuum)
	Gasses on the system	N₂ O₂
Substrates	Batch size	1-30 100 mm wafers (or 50 mm wafers)
Substrates	Substrate materials allowed	Silicon wafers (RCA cleaned) without metal bulk contamination