Method for fabricating semiconductor integrated circuit device
AssigneeRenesas Technology Corp.
InventorsYoshikazu Tanabe, Satoshi Sakai, Nobuyoshi Natsuaki
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Abstract
A method for fabricating a semiconductor integrated circuit device of the invention comprises feeding oxidation species containing a low concentration of water, which is generated from hydrogen and oxygen by the catalytic action, to the main surface of or in the vicinity of a semiconductor wafer, and forming a thin oxide film serving as a gate insulating film of an MOS transistor and having a thickness of 5 nm or below on the main surface of the semiconductor wafer at an oxide film-growing rate sufficient to ensure fidelity in formation of an oxide film and uniformity in thickness of the oxide film.
Claims20
A method for fabricating a semiconductor integrated circuit device, comprising the steps of:
- (a) synthesizing moisture in a moisture synthesizing portion, at a first temperature, from oxygen and hydrogen, by use of a catalyst;
- (b) while keeping the moisture in a gaseous state, transferring the synthesized moisture into a wafer heat treatment chamber to form a wet oxidative atmosphere around a wafer in the wafer heat treatment chamber;
- and
- (c) performing thermal oxidation to a silicon member on or over a first major surface of the wafer in the wet oxidative atmosphere in the wafer heat treatment chamber by heating the wafer up to a second temperature higher than the first temperature to form an insulating film,
- wherein the transport of the synthesized moisture in step (b) is performed while monitoring hydrogen gas by a gas sensor between the moisture synthesizing portion and the wafer heat treatment chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.