# US 12,000,060 B2 · Semiconductor crystal growth method and device

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- Number: US 12,000,060 B2
- Document ID: US12000060B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 17/606,694
- Filed: 2020-01-16
- Published: 2022-07-07
- Granted: 2024-06-04
- Earliest claimed: 2019-04-29
- Assignees: Zing Semiconductor Corporation
- Applicants: Zing Semiconductor Corporation
- Inventors: Weimin Shen; Gang Wang; Hanyi Huang; Yun Liu
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US12000060B2

## CPC

- C30B 15/14: Heating of the melt or the crystallised materials
- C30B 15/02: adding crystallising materials or reactants forming it in situ to the melt
- C30B 15/10: Crucibles or containers for supporting the melt
- C30B 15/20: Controlling or regulating (controlling or regulating in general G05)
- C30B 29/06: Silicon
- C30B: SINGLE-CRYSTAL GROWTH (by using ultra-high pressure, e.g. for the formation of diamonds, B01J3/06); UNIDIRECTIONAL SOLIDIFICATION OF EUTECTIC MATERIAL OR UNIDIRECTIONAL DEMIXING OF EUTECTOID MATERIAL; REFINING BY ZONE-MELTING OF MATERIAL (zone-refining of metals or alloys C22B); PRODUCTION OF A HOMOGENEOUS POLYCRYSTALLINE MATERIAL WITH DEFINED STRUCTURE (casting of metals, casting of other substances by the same processes or devices B22D; working of plastics B29; modifying the physical structure of metals or alloys C21D, C22F); SINGLE CRYSTALS OR HOMOGENEOUS POLYCRYSTALLINE MATERIAL WITH DEFINED STRUCTURE; AFTER-TREATMENT OF SINGLE CRYSTALS OR A HOMOGENEOUS POLYCRYSTALLINE MATERIAL WITH DEFINED STRUCTURE (for producing semiconductor devices or parts thereof H10); APPARATUS THEREFOR

## Abstract

A semiconductor crystal growth method and device are provided. The method comprises: obtaining an initial position of a graphite crucible when used in a semiconductor crystal growth process for the first time; obtaining a current production batch of the graphite crucible which characterizes a number of times of growth processes performed by the graphite crucible so far; and loading polysilicon raw materials into a quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible based on the current production batch, wherein a total weight of the materials is called a charging amount, and the charging amount is adjusted based on the current production batch to keep an initial position of a silicon melt liquid surface in the quartz crucible stable while keeping the initial position of the graphite crucible unchanged. The present invention ensures the stability of each parameter in the crystal pulling process, and enhances the crystal pulling speed and quality.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A method for ensuring stability of parameters in a crystal pulling process, comprising:
obtaining an initial position CP0 of a graphite crucible when used in a semiconductor crystal growth process for a first time;
obtaining a current production batch N of the graphite crucible, the current production batch N characterizing that the graphite crucible currently performs a semiconductor crystal growth process for a Nth;
determining a total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials to be loaded into a quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible based on the current production batch N, wherein the total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials enables to keep an initial position of liquid surface of a silicon melt in the quartz crucible stable while keeping the initial position CP0 of the graphite crucible unchanged, and wherein the determining a total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials to be loaded into a quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible further comprises:
obtaining a charging amount W(1) of polysilicon raw materials loaded in the quartz crucible for the first time of the semiconductor growth process,
determining an increase of charging amount dW to be increased in the quartz crucible for the Nth time of the semiconductor growth process, and
computing a sum of the charging amount W(1) and the increase of charging amount dW to obtain the total weight W(N); and
loading the total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials into the quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible to keep the initial position of liquid surface of the silicon melt in the quartz crucible stable while keeping the initial position CP0 of the graphite crucible unchanged.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The method according to claim 1, wherein the method for obtaining the charging amount dW in the crucible that should be increased in the current production batch N comprises:
Obtaining a calculated initial position CP0(N)′ of the graphite crucible in the current production batch N to ensure that the initial position of liquid surface of the silicon melt remains unchanged in the case that the charging amount in the quartz crucible remains unchanged;
obtaining an initial position difference dCP0(N) based on the calculated initial position CP0(N)′ and the initial position CP0 of the graphite crucible when used in the semiconductor growth process for the first time, wherein dCP0(N)=CP0(N)′−CP0; and
obtaining a charging amount dW that should be increased in the quartz crucible in the current production batch N based on the initial position difference dCP0(N).

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The method according to claim 1, wherein the calculated initial position CP0(N)′ is obtained by the following equation:
CP0(N)′=A*N+B, where A is a batch impact factor of the crucible and B is a wall thickness related parameter of the crucible.

### Claim 4 (depends on 3)

The method according to claim 3, wherein the batch impact factor A and the wall thickness related parameter B are obtained by the steps of:
obtaining a large number of batches M of semiconductor crystal growth processes performed using a same graphite crucible, wherein the quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible has the same charging amount in the large number of batches M of semiconductor crystal growth processes, and same initial position of liquid surface of the silicon melt is obtained by adjusting the initial position of the graphite crucible;
obtaining an adjusted initial position CP0 (i) of the graphite crucible in each batch of the large number of batches M of semiconductor crystal growth processes, where i=1, 2 . . . M;
obtaining a correlation between the adjusted initial position CP0 (i) of the crucible and a batch i based on the adjusted initial position CP0 (i) of the graphite crucible; and
obtaining the batch impact factor A and the wall thickness related parameter B based on the correlation.

### Claim 5 (depends on 4)

The method according to claim 4, wherein the step of obtaining the correlation between the adjusted initial position CP0 (i) of the graphite crucible and the batch i based on the adjusted initial position CP0 (i) of the graphite crucible comprises obtaining a correlation curve between the adjusted initial position CP0 (i) of the graphite crucible and the batch i.

### Claim 6 (depends on 2)

The method according to claim 2, wherein the charging amount dW that should be increased in the quartz crucible in the current production batch N is obtained by the following equation:
dW
=
π
⁡
(
D
2
)
2
*
dCP
⁢
⁢
0
⁢
(
N
)
*
Rho
,
where D is a diameter of the quartz crucible, and Rho is a density of the silicon melt.

### Claim 7

A device for ensuring stability of parameters in a crystal pulling process, wherein the device comprises a memory storing executable program instructions and a controller, wherein the executable program instructions upon execution by the controller cause the device to perform operations comprising:
obtaining an initial position CP0 of a graphite crucible used in a semiconductor crystal growth process for a first time;
obtaining a current production batch N of the graphite crucible, the current production batch N characterizing that the graphite crucible currently performs a semiconductor crystal growth process for a Nth time;
determining a total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials to be loaded into a quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible based on the current production batch N, wherein the total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials enables to keep an initial position of liquid surface of a silicon melt in the quartz crucible stable while keeping the initial position CP0 of the graphite crucible unchanged, and wherein the determining a total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials to be loaded into a quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible further comprises:
obtaining a charging amount W(1) of polysilicon raw materials loaded in the quartz crucible for the first time of the semiconductor growth process,
determining an increase of charging amount dW to be increased in the quartz crucible for the Nth time of the semiconductor growth process, and
computing a sum of the charging amount W(1) and the increase of charging amount dW to obtain the total weight W(N); and
loading the total weight W(N) of polysilicon raw materials into the quartz crucible sleeved in the graphite crucible to keep the initial position of liquid surface of the silicon melt in the quartz crucible stable while keeping the initial position CP0 of the graphite crucible unchanged.