Method of cleaning a surface of a semiconductor substrate by a heat treatment in an inert gas atmosphere
AssigneeNEC Corporation
InventorKensuke Okonogi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of cleaning a surface of a semiconductor comprising the steps of a) washing the semiconductor surface with chemicals to remove particles and metal impurities from the surface; b) inserting the semiconductor into a furnace that contains a gas mixture of nitrogen gas and a second inert gas; c) replacing the gas mixture with a third inert gas; d) heating the furnace containing the third inert gas for a predetermined period of time; and e) replacing the third inert gas in the furnace with oxygen and thermally oxidizing the surface of the semiconductor to form an oxide film on the surface.
Claims4
A method of cleaning and oxidizing a surface of a silicon-on-insulator semiconductor comprising the steps of:
- washing the semiconductor surface with chemicals to remove particles and metal impurities from the surface;
- inserting the semiconductor into a furnace that has an atmosphere of a first gas to prevent formation of an oxide film on the surface;
- replacing the first gas mixture of the furnace with argon;
- removing particles and metal impurities from the surface that were not removed by the washing step by heating the furnace containing said argon to a first temperature for a first period of time;
- replacing said argon contained in the furnace with an oxygen gas;
- and
- thermally oxidizing the surface in the furnace to form an oxide film on the surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.