Silicon-on-insulator:: materials aspects and applications

The purpose of this contribution is to give an overview of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology with emphasis on the fabrication of SOI substrates and their material properties. Although the concept of SOI has been around for several decades, only recent material science advances made the fabrication of thin-him substrates possible whose material quality is comparable to bulk wafers. SIMOX wafers benefitted from lowering the oxygen dose needed for ion-beam synthesis of buried oxide layers and optimisation of the thermal annealing cycles. Through improved thinning technologies, the wafer-direct-bonding approach for the burial of thermal oxide layers became competetive for thin-film SOI. especially when complemented with the salvaging of the "sacrificial" wafer. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.