How to create wells and gates in semiconductor circuits (wafers)
We then remove the remaining resist, and perform
an activation/anneal/diffusion step, also sometimes called the"drive-in". The purpose of this step is two fold. We want to
make the n-tank deep enough so that we can use it for ourp-channel MOS, and we want to build up an implant barrier so
that we can implant into the p-substrate region only. Weintroduce oxygen into the reactor during the activation, so that
we grow a thicker oxide over the region where we implanted thephosphorus. The nitride layer over the p-substrate on the LHS
protects that area from any oxide growth. We then end up withthe structure shown in
.
After the anneal/drive-in
Now we strip the remaining nitride. Since the only way we can
convert from p to n is to add a donor concentration which is
greater than the background acceptor
concentration, we had to keep the doping in the substrate fairlylight in order to be able to make the n-tank. The lightly doped
p-substrate would have too low a threshold voltage for goodn-MOS transistor operation, so we will do a
adjust implant through the thin oxide on the LHS, with
the thick oxide on the RHS blocking the boron from getting intothe n-tank. This is shown in
, where boron
is implanted into the p-type substrate on the LHS, but isblocked by the thick oxide in the region over the n-well.
Adjust implant
adjust implant Next, we strip off all the oxide, grow a new thin layer of
oxide, and then a layer of nitride
. The
oxide layer is grown only because it is bad to grow
directly on top of silicon, as the different coefficients of
thermal expansion between the two materials causes damage to thesilicon crystal structure. Also, it turns out to be nearly
impossible to remove nitride if it is deposited directly on tosilicon.
Strip oxide, new nitride
The nitride is patterned (covered with photoresist, exposed,
developed, etched, and removal of photoresist) to make two areaswhich are called "active"
. (This is where
we will build our transistors.) The wafer is then subjected to ahigh-pressure oxidation step which grows a thick oxide wherever
the nitride was removed. The nitride is a good barrier foroxygen, so essentially no oxide grows underneath it. The thick
oxide is used to isolate individual transistors, and also tomake for an insulating layer over which conducting patterns can
be run. The thick oxide is called
field oxide (or
FOX for short)
.
Nitride after etching
Growing field oxide
Then, the nitride, and some of the oxide are etched off. The
oxide is etched enough so that all of the oxide under thenitride regions is removed, which will take a little off the
field oxide as well. This is because we now want to grow thegate oxide, which must be very clean and pure
. The oxide under the nitride is sometimes called
sacrificial oxide, because it is sacrificed
in the name of ultra performance.
Ready to grow gate oxide
Then the gate oxide is grown, and immediately thereafter, the
whole wafer is covered with polysilicon
.
Poly deposition over gate oxide
The polysilicon is then patterned to form the two regions which
will be our gates. The wafer is covered once again withphotoresist. The resist is removed over the region that will be
the n-channel device, but is left covering the p-channeldevice. A little area near the edge of the n-tank is also
uncovered
. This will allow us to add some
additional phosphorus into the n-well, so that we can make acontact there, so that the n-well can be connected to
.
Preparing for nmos channel/drain implant
Back into the implanter we go, this time exposing the wafer to
phosphorus. The poly gate, the FOX and the photoresist all blockphosphorus from getting into the wafer, so we make two n-type
regions in the p-type substrate, and we have made our n-channelMOS source/drain regions. We also add phosphorous to the
contact region in the n-well so as the make sure we get good
contact performance there
.
Phosphorus s/d implant
Note that the formation of the source and drain were performed
with a
self-aligning technology . This means that we
used the gate structure itself to define where the two insideedges of the source and drain would be for the MOSFET. If we hadmade the source/drain regions
before we
defined the gate, and then tried to line the gate up right overthe space between them, we might have gotten something that
looks like what is shown in
. What's
going to be the problem with this transistor? Obviously, if thegate does not extend all the way to both the source
and the drain, then the channel will not
either, and the transistor will never turn on! We could trymaking the gate wider, to ensure that it will overlap both
active areas, even if it is slightly misaligned, but then youget a lot of extraneous fringing capacitance which will
significantly slow down the speed of operation of the transistor
. This is bad! The development of the
self-aligned gate technique was one of the big breakthroughswhich has propelled us into the VLSI and ULSI era.
Misaligned gate
Wide gate
We pull the wafer out of the implanter, and strip off the
photoresist. This is sometimes difficult, because the act of ionimplantation can "bake" the photoresist into a very tough
film. Sometimes an rf discharge in an
atmosphere is used to "ash" the photoresist, and literally burn
it off the wafer! We now apply some more PR, and this timepattern to have the moat area, and a substrate contact exposed,
for a boron p+ implant. This is shown in
.
Boron p-channel s/d implant
We are almost done. The next thing we do is remove all the
photoresist, and grow one more layer of oxide, which coverseverything, as shown in
. We put
photoresist over the whole wafer again, and pattern for contactholes to go through the oxide. We will put contacts for the two
drains, and for each of the sources, make sure that the holesare big enough to also allow us to connect the source contact to
either the p-substrate or the n-moat as is appropriate
.
