New life in detecting defects

Author

Schroder, Dieter K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ

Volume

14

Issue

6

fYear

1998

fDate

11/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

14

Lastpage

20

Abstract

Carrier lifetimes in semiconductors have been recently rediscovered by the silicon IC community. This is an opportune time to discuss this topic since lifetime is emerging as an important parameter for describing material, process, and equipment cleanliness after being ignored for many years. This article tries to shed some light on “lifetimes in semiconductors,” which is a topic that has caused much confusion in the past. Various recombination mechanisms are discussed and the concept of recombination and generation lifetime is presented. We will show that surface recombination/generation plays an important role in today´s high-purity Si and will become yet more important as bulk impurity densities in Si are reduced further

Keywords

carrier lifetime; electron-hole recombination; elemental semiconductors; integrated circuit measurement; integrated circuit reliability; silicon; Si; bulk impurity densities; carrier lifetimes; equipment cleanliness; generation lifetime; recombination mechanisms; semiconductors; Charge carrier lifetime; History; Lifetime estimation; Pollution measurement; Radiative recombination; Semiconductor materials; Spontaneous emission; Surface contamination; Thyristors; Time measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Circuits and Devices Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

8755-3996

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/101.735790

Filename

735790