Back to results
US 6,569,239 B2Granted
Silicon epitaxial wafer and production method therefor
AssigneeShin-Etsu Handotai Co., Ltd.
InventorsTakeshi Arai, Tadaaki Honma, Hitoshi Habuka
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
AssigneeShin-Etsu Handotai Co., Ltd.
InventorsTakeshi Arai, Tadaaki Honma, Hitoshi Habuka
Estimating the term…
A surface roughness distribution in the surface of a silicon epitaxial wafer is made uniform by optimizing a temperature distribution in the surface of a susceptor used in a vapor phase thin film growth apparatus. The susceptor is not supported by its center of the rear surface thereof, but only the peripheral portion thereof is supported using vertical pins respectively provided at the far ends of spokes radially branched from a rotary shaft. The susceptor is constituted so that a difference in temperature between the maximum and minimum in the surface of a silicon wafer is suppressed to a value equal to or less than 7° C. Hence, a surface roughness distribution in the surface of the silicon epitaxial wafer can be suppressed to a value equal to or less than 0.02 ppm.
A production method for a silicon epitaxial wafer in which a silicon wafer is grown while disposed on a rotary susceptor horizontally supported in a process vessel and a silicon epitaxial layer is grown in a vapor phase on the silicon wafer while heating the silicon wafer, characterized by that a temperature distribution of the silicon wafer during growth is optimized so that a surface roughness distribution in a surface of the silicon epitaxial layer, which is calculated based on all measurements of surface roughness in the surface thereof by a laser scattered light detection method excluding measured values which are respectively included within a cumulative frequency of 0.3% in the upper and lower end sides of all the measurements, is suppressed to be equal to or less than 0.02 ppm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.