Very high quality thin gate oxide formation technology

Abstract

A new approach to gate oxidation processes, where oxide growth is completely controlled by ultraclean technology, is presented. This approach with chemical preoxide growth in ozonized ultrapure water as a passivation layer, ramp-up in an Ar ambient with a negligible amount of residual water, and formation of high quality oxide in a reductive ambient with H radicals can completely eliminate uncontrolled oxide growth and provide very high quality thin gate oxide. The impact of organic contamination on the gate integrity is also discussed. A newly developed Fourier transform infrared technique is used for the evaluation of organic contamination on the wafer surface.