Investigation of intrinsic gettering for germanium doped Czochralski silicon wafer

The intrinsic gettering (IG) effects in a germanium-doped Czochralski (GCz) silicon wafer have been investigated through a processing simulation of dynamic random access memory making and an evaluation on IG capability for copper contamination. It has been suggested that both the good quality defect-free denuded zones (DZs) and the high-density bulk microdefect (BMD) regions could be generated in GCz silicon wafer during device fabrication. Meanwhile, it was also indicated that the tiny oxygen precipitates were hardly presented in DZs of silicon wafer with the germanium doping. Furthermore, it was found in GCz silicon wafer that the BMDs were higher in density but smaller in size in contrast to that in conventional Cz silicon wafer. Promoted IG capability for metallic contamination was therefore induced in the germanium-doped Cz silicon wafer. A mechanism of the germanium doping on oxygen precipitation in Cz silicon was discussed, which was based on the hypothesis of germanium-related complexes. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.