Impurity engineering of Czochralski silicon

Microelectronic devices with high integration level and functional complexity are always requiring larger diameter and more perfect Czochralski (CZ) silicon wafers. Therefore, the defects, playing the key role in the quality control of silicon materials, have to be well controlled during crystal growth and device fabrication. Co-doping nitrogen (N), germanium (Ge) or carbon (C) into CZ silicon to control defect dynamics and to change defect evolution, so-called “impurity engineering”, has been developed in recent years, and has been widely applied in the fabrication of higher quality CZ silicon used for microelectronics nowadays. This article is to present an overview of the current status of impurity engineering in CZ silicon, based on the co-doping technologies of N, Ge and C. The fundamental properties of these three co-dopants and their interaction with point defects in CZ silicon are firstly introduced. The bulk of the article is focused on the effects of co-dopants on the formation of oxygen precipitates related to internal gettering (IG) of devices for metal contaminants, and voids associated with the gate oxide integrity (GOI) of devices in CZ silicon. Finally, the improvement of CZ silicon mechanical strength by co-doping technology is described.