Patent Application
20200020817
The present invention relates to an epitaxial silicon wafer, and more particularly to an epitaxial silicon wafer having an epitaxial layer formed on the surface of a boron-doped p-type silicon substrate.
Epitaxial silicon wafers are being widely used as substrate material for semiconductor devices. An epitaxial silicon wafer has an epitaxial layer formed on the surface of a bulk silicon substrate. Since epitaxial silicon wafers show a high degree of crystal perfection, they can serve for manufacturing of highly reliable, high-quality semiconductor devices.
Silicon substrates containing a p-type or n-type impurity at high concentration are employed for epitaxial silicon wafers, whose applications include solid-state imaging elements and power semiconductor devices. For example, Patent Literature 1 describes an epitaxial silicon wafer comprising a wafer that shows a nitrogen concentration of 1×1012 atoms/cm3 or more or whose electrical resistivity is set to 20 mΩ·cm or less by means of boron-doping and an epitaxial layer arranged on the surface of the wafer, wherein the initial oxygen concentration of the epitaxial silicon wafer is 14×1017 atoms/cm3 or less.
If compared with ordinary wafers, silicon wafers that are heavily doped with nitrogen or boron can easily produce oxygen precipitates in device manufacturing processes because nitrogen and boron raise the stability of oxygen precipitation cores. Therefore, if laser spike annealing (LSA) is executed in a state where plate-shaped oxygen precipitates has grown to show a large size, dislocation can easily take place, starting from such an oxygen precipitation core. However, an epitaxial silicon wafer described above can prevent dislocation that starts from an oxygen precipitation core from taking place even when LSA is executed in the device fabrication process.
Patent Literature 2 describes an epitaxial wafer to be used for a backside illumination type solid-state imaging element, the epitaxial silicon wafer comprising a p-type silicon substrate containing carbon and nitrogen added thereto and having an electrical resistivity of less than 100 mΩ·cm, a p-type first epitaxial layer formed on the p-type silicon substrate and a p-type or n-type second epitaxial layer formed on the p-type first epitaxial layer, the interstitial oxygen concentration in the p-type silicon substrate being between 10×1017 atoms/cm3 and 20×1017 atoms/cm3, the density of precipitate in a central portion of the p-type silicon substrate as viewed in the depth direction thereof being 5×105 cm2 or more and 5×107 cm2 or less. According to this epitaxial wafer, Backside illumination type solid-state imaging elements can be manufactured at high yield.
[Patent Literature 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-228459
[Patent Literature 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-138576
With regard to epitaxial wafers to be used for solid-state imaging elements and other applications, the boron contained in the silicon substrate is indispensable to secure the gettering ability and lower the electric resistance of the silicon substrate. However, on the other hand, when boron is diffused to a large extent from the silicon substrate toward the epitaxial layer side, there arises a problem that the impurity profile of the epitaxial layer is changed to degrade the uniformity of in-plane electrical resistivity of the wafer. Additionally, the width of the transition region of boron concentration (resistance-varying layer) in the epitaxial layer at and near the boundary of the silicon substrate and the epitaxial layer is increased to reduce the effective thickness of the epitaxial layer so as to in turn degrade the characteristics of the semiconductor device. For this reason, it is necessary to suppress boron diffusion in the silicon substrate as much as possible.
It is known that diffusion of boron atoms contained in a silicon substrate is enhanced as the silicon substrate is subjected to a heat treatment in an oxidizing atmosphere. As thermal oxide film is formed on the surface of a silicon substrate, some of the Si atoms in the silicon substrate are ousted from their places because their original places are occupied by SiO2 molecules and then pushed out from the crystal lattice. Then, the number of interstitial silicon atoms increases. On the other hand, as boron atoms are replaced by interstitial silicon atoms, they are diffused by kick-out diffusion. Thus, the diffusion of boron atoms is enhanced as a result of the increase in the number of interstitial silicon atoms. Therefore, a technique of suppressing enhanced diffusion of boron atoms is to avoid as much as possible conducting any heat treatment in an oxidizing atmosphere.
However, there are instances where device characteristics are degraded due to boron diffusion even when the device fabrication process does not include any heat treatment in an oxidizing atmosphere. Therefore, it is eagerly desired to improve the existing techniques for suppressing enhanced diffusion of boron atoms.
In view of the above identified technical problems, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an epitaxial silicon wafer in which enhanced boron diffusion in the silicon substrate is suppressed.
To solve the above problems, the inventors of the present invention intensively looked into the mechanism of boron diffusion in silicon wafers. As a result of the intensive research efforts, the inventors have made it clear that not only in heat treatments in an oxidizing atmosphere, but also in any heat treatments, interstitial silicon atoms are released as oxygen precipitates grows in the silicon substrate and kick-out diffusion of boron atoms is promoted by way of interstitial silicon atoms. In particular, boron diffusion attributable to oxygen precipitates rapidly progresses when the density of oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate exceeds a threshold level. The present invention is achieved by the inventors of the present invention as they paid attention to this fact.
Thus, the present invention is based on the above-described technical findings. An epitaxial silicon wafer according to the present invention is characterized in that an epitaxial layer is formed on a surface of a boron-doped silicon substrate, wherein the boron concentration in the silicon substrate is 2.7×1017 atoms/cm3 or more and 1.3×1019 atoms/cm3 or less, an initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate is 11×1017 atoms/cm3 or less, and when an oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment is executed on the epitaxial silicon wafer, the density of oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate is 1×1010/cm3 or less.
Thus, according to the present invention, the density of oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate is 1×1010/cm3 or less and, therefore, even when oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate grows as a result of any heat treatment in the device fabrication process, it is possible to suppress the increase in the number of interstitial silicon atoms that arises as a result of a rise of the density of oxygen precipitates. Then, it is also possible to suppress the kick-out diffusion of boron atoms in the silicon substrate toward the epitaxial layer side by way of the interstitial silicon atoms so that consequently diffusion of boron atoms can be suppressed to a level that is practically equal to the level of boron diffusion that is observed when the density of oxygen precipitates is substantially nil.
In the present invention, the boron concentration in the silicon substrate is preferably 2.7×1017 atoms/cm3 or more and 1.3×1019 atoms/cm3 or less and the initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate is preferably 11×1017 atoms/cm3 or less. When the initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate is 11×1017 atoms/cm3 or less, the density of oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate can be held to 1×1010/cm3 or less even when oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate grows due to any heat treatment in the device fabrication process.
In the present invention, the boron concentration Y (atoms/cm3) and the initial oxygen concentration X (×1017 atoms/cm3) preferably satisfy a relational expression of X≤−4.3×10−19Y+16.3. So long as the boron concentration and the initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate satisfy the above defined requirement, the density of oxygen precipitates can be held to 1×1010/cm3 or less regardless of the boron concentration in the silicon substrate. Then, therefore, it is possible to suppress enhanced boron diffusion attributable to oxygen precipitates.
Thus, as described above, the present invention can provide an epitaxial silicon wafer that can suppress enhanced boron diffusion in the silicon substrate even when oxygen precipitates grow due to any heat treatment in the device fabrication process.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
As shown in
The silicon substrate 11 is a boron-doped p-type silicon substrate. The boron concentration in the silicon substrate 11 is preferably 2.7×1017 atoms/cm3 or more and 1.3×1019 atoms/cm3 or less while the electrical resistivity of the silicon substrate 11 is preferably 20 mΩ·cm or less. The electrical resistivity of the silicon substrate 11 can be reduced to such a low level and the silicon substrate 11 can be provided with a sufficiently high gettering ability by using a silicon substrate 11 that is doped with boron to such a high concentration level.
An epitaxial layer 12 is formed on the surface of the silicon substrate 11. A semiconductor device such as a MOS transistor may typically be formed in the epitaxial layer 12. The thickness of the epitaxial layer 12 is preferably between 1 and 10 μm. The epitaxial layer 12 may have a multilayer structure formed by laying a plurality of epitaxial layers having different characteristics one on the other. Normally, the electrical resistivity of the epitaxial layer 12 is made to be higher than the electrical resistivity of the silicon substrate 11 and the silicon substrate is made to contain a p-type dopant (boron) or an n-type dopant (phosphor, arsenic or antimony) added thereto.
When an oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment is executed on the epitaxial silicon wafer 10, the density of oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate 11 is 1×1010/cm3 or less. As will be described in greater detail hereinafter, the oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate 11 will only minimally influence the boron diffusion when the density of oxygen precipitates is 1×1010/cm3 or less. Then, the boron diffusion can be held to a level that is practically equal to the diffusion level that is observed when the density of oxygen precipitates is substantially nil.
An oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment is a two-step heat treatment in which typically a first heat treatment (core forming step) and a second heat treatment (core growing step) are sequentially conducted respectively at 700° C. for 3 hours and at 1,000° C. for 16 hours. They are heat treatments simulating those of a device fabrication process. The heat treatments are conducted not in an oxidizing atmosphere but in a nitrogen atmosphere so that no thermal oxide film is formed there and hence there arises no problem of enhanced diffusion of boron atoms attributable to production of thermal oxide film. However, as the oxygen precipitation core grows in the silicon substrate 11, the density of oxygen precipitates rises to give rise to an additional cause of boron diffusion. Furthermore, it is known that boron in the silicon substrate 11 exerts an effect of promoting oxygen precipitation and therefore, as the boron concentration in the silicon substrate 11 rises, the density of oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate 11 also rises. While the existence of oxygen precipitates is necessary to some extent for the purpose of securing the gettering ability, enhanced boron diffusion occurs as the volume of oxygen precipitate increases.
To make the density of oxygen precipitate in the silicon substrate 11 1×1010/cm3 or less, it is necessary to make the interstitial initial oxygen concentration of the silicon substrate 11 11×1017 atoms/cm3 or less. If the initial oxygen concentration is higher than 11×1017 atoms/cm3, the number of interstitial silicon atoms rises as the density of oxygen precipitate increases to consequently allow enhanced boron diffusion to occur by way of interstitial silicon atoms. The lower the initial oxygen density, the better for the density of oxygen precipitate to be held below the above defined limit level. While no lower limit is defined for the initial oxygen concentration, it is currently impossible to grow silicon single crystals having an initial oxygen concentration lower than 11×1017 atoms/cm3 from the viewpoint of actual manufacturing. Note here that all the oxygen concentrations cited in this patent specification are measured values obtained by means of Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR) as defined in ASTM F-121 (1979).
The preferred range of initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate 11 changes as a function of the boron concentration in the substrate. When the boron concentration in the silicon substrate 11 is low, no problem arises if the initial oxygen concentration is high to some extent. However, when the boron concentration is high, oxygen precipitate is produced excessively unless the initial oxygen concentration is held low because oxygen precipitate can easily grow in such an environment so that it may not be possible to make the density of oxygen precipitate 1×1010/cm3 or less. When the initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate 11 is expressed by X (×1017 atoms/cm3) and the boron concentration is expressed by Y (atoms/cm3), they preferably satisfy the requirement of the relational expression of X≤−4.3×10−19Y+16.3. As long as they satisfy the requirement of the above defined relational expression, the density of oxygen precipitate in the silicon substrate 11 can be held to be 1×1010/cm3 or less regardless of the boron concentration.
As shown in
When silicon is put into a quartz crucible as starting material, a predetermined amount of boron is added to the raw material so as to make the single crystal pulled up from the quartz crucible contain boron. More specifically, boron is added by the amount that makes the single crystal show the intended electrical resistivity at the top position of the single crystal. Then, as the added boron is molten with the starting material of silicon, boron-containing silicon melt is produced. While the single crystal that is pulled up from the silicon melt contains boron at a given content ratio, the boron concentration rises in the ingot pull-up direction as the crystal growth progresses due to segregation. Therefore, the oxygen concentration needs to be reduced in the ingot pull-up direction so as to make the ingot satisfy the requirement of the above defined relational expression.
The oxygen concentration in the single crystal can be controlled by adjusting the rotational speed of the quartz crucible and/or the power supplied to the heater. To reduce the oxygen concentration in the single crystal, it is sufficient to select a low rotational speed for the quartz crucible and/or a low power output for the heater. Thus, the oxygen concentration in the single crystal can be held low by controlling the conditions under which the single crystal is pulled up in the above-described manner.
The MCZ method of pulling up the single crystal, while applying a magnetic field to the silicon melt, is very effective for reducing the oxygen concentration in the pulled up single crystal. With the MCZ method, the convection of the silicon melt can be suppressed under the influence of the magnetic field so that consequently the elution of oxygen from the quartz crucible into the silicon melt can be suppressed and hence the oxygen concentration in the single crystal that is pulled up from the silicon melt can also be held to a low level.
Then, the silicon single crystal ingot is processed to produce the silicon substrate 11 (Step S2). As described above, the silicon substrate 11 is a polished wafer that is cut out from the silicon single crystal ingot and whose surface is mirror-polished. The boron concentration of the silicon substrate 11 is 2.7×1017 atoms/cm3 or more and 1.3×1019 atoms/cm3 or less and the initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate 11 is 11×1017 atoms/cm3 or less.
Next, an epitaxial layer 12 is formed on the surface of the silicon substrate 11 by a well-known method (Step S3). As a result of executing the above steps, a finished epitaxial wafer 10 is produced.
An epitaxial silicon wafer 10 that is manufactured in the above-described way is then employed as substrate material for semiconductor devices. Then, various semiconductor devices can be produced by using such an epitaxial silicon wafer by way of various processing steps. Such processing steps include various heat treatment steps and, as a result, an oxygen precipitation core is formed in the silicon substrate 11, which oxygen precipitation core grows to increase the density of oxygen precipitate in the silicon substrate. However, since the density of oxygen precipitate in the silicon substrate is held to be 1×1010/cm3 or less, any enhanced boron diffusion attributable to oxygen precipitate can be prevented from taking place.
If the boron concentration and the initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate are known and the heat treatment conditions (heat history) in the device fabrication process are also known, the density of oxygen precipitate and the extent of enhanced boron diffusion in the silicon substrate that will be observed when such an epitaxial silicon wafer is heat treated during the device fabrication process can be predicted by means of simulation. If, as a result of such simulation, the width of the transition region that is broadened by enhanced boron diffusion cannot be confined within the given permissible range, it may only be necessary to adjust the initial oxygen concentration so as to confine the width of the transition region within the given permissible range. Thus, the initial oxygen concentration in the silicon substrate that is necessary to produce a given density of oxygen precipitate can be predicted from the heat treatment conditions in the device fabrication process, so that the enhanced boron diffusion can be confined within a given permissible range.
As described above in detail, the epitaxial silicon wafer 10 of this embodiment comprises a boron-doped silicon substrate 11 and an epitaxial layer 12 formed on the surface of the silicon substrate 11 and, when an oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment is conducted, the density of oxygen precipitates in the silicon substrate 11 is found to be 1×1010/cm3 or less. Thus, this embodiment can suppress any enhanced diffusion of boron that can take place from the silicon substrate 11 toward the epitaxial layer 12 as a result of a rise in the density of oxygen precipitates.
The epitaxial silicon wafer 10 of this embodiment can advantageously be employed as substrate material for a backside illumination type solid-state imaging element. In the process of manufacturing a backside illumination type solid-state imaging element, metal impurities contained in the silicon substrate can increase the dark current of the sensor section to in turn give rise to defects that are referred to as white flaws. However, the use of a p-type silicon substrate that is doped with boron atoms to a high concentration level can solve the problem of metal impurities because the silicon substrate operates as gettering sink.
Additionally, in a backside illumination type solid-state imaging element, the wiring layer and related parts are arranged in layers located lower than the sensor section so that the sensor section can directly take in light coming from outside. Then, as a result, the imaging element can produce clear images including moving images. It is necessary to execute a process of removing the silicon substrate 11 typically by polishing in order to arrange the wiring layer and related parts in layers located lower than the sensor section and causing only the epitaxial layer 12 to be left undamaged. If the transition region in the epitaxial layer 12 is broadened by enhanced boron diffusion to degrade the uniformity of in-plane electrical resistivity of the wafer, it becomes difficult to determine the appropriate extent to which the silicon substrate 11 is to be polished and, additionally, the characteristics of the solid-state imaging element can be degraded because the effective thickness of the epitaxial layer 12 can be reduced. However, the above identified problems will be dissolved to make it possible to manufacture a high quality backside illumination type imaging element when the width of the transition region is satisfactorily narrow and the effective thickness of the epitaxial layer 12 is sufficiently large.
While preferred embodiments of the present invention have been explained above, the present invention is not limited thereto. Various modifications can be made to the embodiments without departing from the scope of the present invention and it is needless to say that such modifications are also embraced within the scope of the invention.
A silicon substrate with (100) crystal plane orientation was cut out from a silicon single crystal ingot grown by means of the CZ method and the surface of the silicon substrate was mirror-polished. The silicon substrate contained boron added thereto to a concentration of 1.0×1019 atoms/cm3. The initial oxygen concentration of the silicon substrate was 6×1017 atoms/cm3. An epitaxial layer of 5 μm thickness was formed on the surface of the silicon substrate by vapor deposition at a temperature of 1150° C. to obtain a sample of epitaxial silicon wafer, which will be referred to as epitaxial silicon wafer Sample #1 hereinafter. Additionally, epitaxial silicon wafer samples of Samples #2 through #4, which showed respective initial oxygen concentrations that differed from the initial oxygen concentration of Sample #1, were prepared by way of respective processes similar to the process of preparing Sample #1. The initial oxygen concentration of Sample #2, that of Sample #3 and that of Sample #4 were respectively 10×1017 atoms/cm3, 11×1017 atoms/cm3 and 13×1017 atoms/cm3.
Then, an oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment was conducted on each of the epitaxial silicon wafer samples #1 through #4. In each of the oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatments, a heat treatment was conducted at 700° C. in a nitrogen atmosphere for 3 hours and subsequently another heat treatment was conducted at 1,000° C. also in an nitrogen atmosphere for 16 hours. Additionally, depth profiling of boron concentration of each of the samples #1 through #4 was observed by SIMS (secondary ion mass spectroscopy) before and after the oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment.
As shown in
On the other hand, all the boron concentration profiles of the samples #1 through #4 changed remarkably after the respective oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatments if compared with the concentration profiles that were observed before the evaluation heat treatments. More specifically, the boron diffusion into the epitaxial layer increased to a large extent after the oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment in each of the samples. Thus, it may be safe to assume that the thermal diffusion due to the evaluation heat treatment is mainly responsible for the remarkable change in the boron concentration profile of each of the samples.
Out of the samples, the boron concentration profile (solid line) of “Sample #1” showed that practically no boron atoms existed at and near the surface of the epitaxial layer. In other words, Sample #1 showed an excellent result. The boron concentration abruptly increased at about depth 0.7. The boron concentration was 0.015 at depth 0.8, 0.2 at depth 0.9 and 0.5 at depth 1. Both “Sample #2” (broken line having short segments) and “Sample #3” (dotted line) showed respective boron concentration profiles that were substantially the same as that of Sample #1.
The boron concentration profile (dashed dotted line) of “Sample #4” largely differed from the boron concentration profiles of Samples #1 through #3”. Boron diffusion progressed to near the surface of the epitaxial layer in Sample #4. More specifically, the boron concentration started to increase at about depth 0.6 and the boron concentrations at depth 0.7, at depth 0.8 and at depth 0.9 were respectively 0.004, 0.07 and 0.25. The boron concentration at depth 1 was 0.5, which was the same as the boron concentration at depth 1 of each of Samples #1 through #3.
From the obtained results as described above it became clear that boron diffusion was scarcely observed in Samples #1 through #3 but boron diffused very remarkably in Sample #4. It may be safe to assume that enhanced boron diffusion was mainly responsible for the phenomenon that the boron concentration profile of Sample #4 changed particularly remarkably.
Then, after the oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment, each of the epitaxial silicon wafer samples #1 through #4 were cleaved in the thickness direction and the cleaved cross-section of each of them was subjected to a selective etching process of etching it to a thickness of 2 μm by means of a wright etching solution. Subsequently, the central part of the cleaved cross-section in the thickness direction of the silicon wafer was observed through an optical microscope and the number of etch pits within the 100 μm×100 μm square area was measured as density of oxygen precipitates. Table 1 below shows the obtained results.
As seen from Table 1, the density of oxygen precipitates of Sample #1 was below the measurement threshold (less than 1×107/cm3). The density of oxygen precipitates of Sample #2 and that of Sample #3 were respectively 1×109/cm3 and 1×1010/cm3, whereas that of Sample #4 was 3×1010/cm3. From the results shown in Table 1 and the graph of
Thereafter, a total of 28 samples of epitaxial silicon wafer that were differentiated by using the initial oxygen concentration and the boron concentration in the silicon substrate as parameters were prepared in order to look into the mutual relationship among the initial oxygen concentration, the boron concentration and the density of oxygen precipitates and each of the samples was subjected to an oxygen precipitate evaluation heat treatment and subsequently the density of oxygen precipitates thereof was measured.
As clearly seen from
The boundary line separating the plotted “∘” marks and the plotted “x” marks was expressed by means of a linear function to define the region of the plotted “∘” marks. From the obtained results as described above, it became clear that the density of oxygen precipitates can be made to be 1×1010/cm3 or less when the oxygen concentration X (×1018 atoms/cm3) and the boron concentration Y (atoms/cm3) satisfy the requirement of
X≤−4.3×10−19Y+16.3.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-148558 | Jul 2015 | JP | national |
This application is a Continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 15/745,174, which is a National Stage of PCT/JP2016/069980, filed Jul. 6, 2016, which claims priority to JP App. No. 2015-148558, filed Jul. 28, 2015. Each of the above applications is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 15745174 | Jan 2018 | US |
| Child | 16583732 | US |
