Semiconductor device manufacturing: process – Making device or circuit emissive of nonelectrical signal – Compound semiconductor
Reexamination Certificate
2007-02-09
2009-06-02
Lee, Hsien-ming (Department: 2823)
Semiconductor device manufacturing: process
Making device or circuit emissive of nonelectrical signal
Compound semiconductor
C438S047000, C438S077000, C438S093000, C438S094000, C257SE21085
Reexamination Certificate
active
07541208
ABSTRACT:
Oxidation methods, which avoid consuming undesirably large amounts of surface material in Si/SiGe heterostructure-based wafers, replace various intermediate CMOS thermal oxidation steps. First, by using oxide deposition methods, arbitrarily thick oxides may be formed with little or no consumption of surface silicon. These oxides, such as screening oxide and pad oxide, are formed by deposition onto, rather than reaction with and consumption of the surface layer. Alternatively, oxide deposition is preceded by a thermal oxidation step of short duration, e.g., rapid thermal oxidation. Here, the short thermal oxidation consumes little surface Si, and the Si/oxide interface is of high quality. The oxide may then be thickened to a desired final thickness by deposition. Furthermore, the thin thermal oxide may act as a barrier layer to prevent contamination associated with subsequent oxide deposition.
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Currie Matthew T.
Lochtefeld Anthony J.
AmberWave Systems Corporation
Goodwin & Procter LLP
Lee Hsien-ming
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