Epitaxial wafer and method of producing same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9340900-B2
Application number	US-85059907-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 5, 2007
Priority date	Sep 6, 2006
Publication date	May 17, 2016
Grant date	May 17, 2016

Abstract

A method of producing an epitaxial wafer, comprising: performing epitaxial growth of silicon on a main surface of a wafer made of a silicon single crystal; performing surface flattening pretreatment of a main surface of the wafer using a treatment liquid of a predetermined composition at a temperature of 100° C. or less, thereby forming an oxide film of a predetermined thickness while removing particles adhered on the main surface of the wafer; and performing a surface polishing step where the main surface of the wafer is mirror polished.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of producing an epitaxial wafer, comprising the steps of:
performing epitaxial growth of a silicon on a main surface of a wafer made of a silicon single crystal, thereby forming an epitaxial silicon layer;
performing surface flattening pretreatment of the epitaxial silicon layer on the main surface of the wafer using a treatment liquid of a predetermined composition, thereby forming an oxide film of a predetermined thickness while removing particles adhered on the epitaxial silicon layer on the main surface of the wafer; and
performing a surface polishing after the surface flattening pretreatment where the epitaxial silicon layer on the main surface of the wafer having the oxide film formed on the epitaxial silicon layer is mirror polished until a detected size of LPD existing on the surface of the epitaxial wafer is 100 nm or less;
wherein the wafer made of a silicon single crystal is a double face polished {110} wafer;
an amount of material removed in the surface polishing step is 0.1 to 1.0 μm;
the predetermined thickness of the oxide film is in a range from 5 to 30 Å; and
the treatment liquid is a solution containing 5 ppm to 40 ppm of ozone as an oxidizing agent in ultrapure water, the wafer being treated at a temperature of 10 to 30° C. for 10 seconds to 20 minutes.

2. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , further comprising mirror polishing a back surface of the wafer.

3. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , further comprising, before the surface polishing step, edge polishing step to mirror polish a surface of edge portion of the wafer.

4. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 3 , wherein the surface flattening pretreatment is performed at least at one stage selected from a stage between the epitaxial growth and the edge polishing and a stage between the edge polishing step and the surface polishing step.

5. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , wherein the mirror polishing step is performed by chemical polishing.

6. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , wherein only the epitaxial silicon layer on the main surface of the wafer is mirror polished in the surface polishing step.

7. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a step of removing a natural oxide film of the wafer by using a solution containing hydrofluoric acid after forming the epitaxial silicon layer on the main surface of the wafer and before the surface flattening pretreatment, and wherein
the epitaxial silicon layer on both the main surface and a back surface of the wafer is mirror polished in the surface polishing step.

8. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , wherein
the wafer is immersed in the treatment liquid of the predetermined composition in the performing surface flattening pretreatment step.

9. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , wherein the detected size of LPD existing on the surface of the epitaxial wafer is 58 nm or less after the surface polishing.

10. The method of producing an epitaxial wafer according to claim 1 , the method further comprising: prior to the epitaxial growth,
slicing the wafer from a silicon single crystal ingot;
etching the main surface of the sliced wafer; and
mirror polishing the main surface of the etched wafer.

Assignees

• Nakahara Shinji
• Sakai Masato
• Dohi Takayuki
• Sumco Corp

Inventors

• Nakahara Shinji
• Sakai Masato
• Dohi Takayuki

Classifications

• H10P90/129

  by polishing · CPC title

• H10W20/081

  by forming openings in the dielectric parts · CPC title

• C30B29/06

  Silicon · CPC title

• C30B33/005

  Oxydation · CPC title

• C30B23/02

  Epitaxial-layer growth · CPC title