News Article
Silicon Genesis Takes Up Strained Silicon
US semiconductor equipment developer Silicon Genesis Corporation (SiGen) has successfully developed a new strained silicon method to create high carrier mobility layers. The process is applicable to the fabrication of strained-silicon bulk wafers and strained-silicon silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers.
US semiconductor equipment developer Silicon Genesis Corporation (SiGen) has successfully developed a new strained silicon method to create high carrier mobility layers. The process is applicable to the fabrication of strained-silicon bulk wafers and strained-silicon silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers.
The process is called "Nanostrain" and is based on the use of a single epitaxial reactor step to grow a graded silicon-germanium layer followed by a thermal relaxation step under a hydrogen and etchant gas ambient before strained silicon epitaxial growth. The use of the gas-phase etchant ambient substantially reduces the roughening and dislocation generation associated with silicon-germanium relaxation using thermal anneal steps.
The result is a strained silicon layer of low roughness and high-quality made without costly planarisation steps such as chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP). The company reports dislocation defect density and roughness of a level consistent with use in microelectronics manufacturing.