Reducing leakage current in silicon-on-insulator substrates

Details Reducing leakage current in silicon-on-insulator substrates Reducing leakage current in silicon-on-insulator substrates

1993-06-24

1994-10-04

Niebling, John

Chemistry: electrical and wave energy

Processes and products

Electrostatic field or electrical discharge

20412965, 20412975, C25F 312

Patent

active

053523415

ABSTRACT:
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a method and structure which substantially reduce the leakage current between the surface layer and the substrate silicon that can be caused by the leakage pipes formed in the buried layer in a SIMOX process. A novel solution to this problem is to etch the silicon in these pipes by using an anodizing process. A preferred embodiment of this invention comprises the steps of exposing the surface layer (e.g. silicon 34) to an electrolytic solution (e.g dilute HF acid 38), and creating a potential difference between the substrate (e.g. silicon 30) and the solution, thereby causing current to flow through the leakage pipes (e.g. silicon 36) in the buried insulator layer (e.g. SiO.sub.2 32), thereby causing the solution to etch a portion of the surface silicon that is essentially above the leakage pipes, and to substantially etch the silicon in the leakage pipes, thus substantially reducing the leakage current paths between the substrate and the surface layer. Since the leakage current is generally detrimental to the performance of SIMOX devices, the clean removal of the silicon in the pipes will generally help improve the performance and increase the yield of SIMOX devices.

REFERENCES:
Michael Guerra, "The Status of SIMOX Technology," Solid State Technology, Nov. 1990, pp. 75-78.
J. Margail, J. M. Lamure and A. M. Papon, "Defects in SIMOX Structures: Some Process Dependence," Materials Science and Engineering, B12 (1992) pp. 27-36.

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