Electronic Materials and

Processing I
Chapter 1
AN ENVIRONMENT OF CHALLENGES
Chapter 1
AN ENVIRONMENT OF CHALLENGES
1.1 Overview
- Electronic applications:
Simple copper wires
High-performance magnetic materials for computer disks
Semiconductors for microelectronic devices (Si)
- The critical properties of the materials : electronic conductivity,
optical transmission, mechanical properties.
- It is not reasonable to cover all aspects of electronic materials -
The materials discussed here relate primarily to the most
challenging applications, particularly with reference to
microelectronic and optical devices.
- Semiconducting materials used in active devices : some
traditional materials, such as silicon.
 1.2 A HISTORY OF MODERN ELECTRONIC DEVICES

1905 Vacuum tube diode invented by J. Ambrose Flemming

1906 Triode vacuum tube invented by Lee DeForest
1916 Czochralski crystal growth technique invented by Jan
Czochralski (Si ingot 300mm today)
1935 First patent issued on a field-effect transistor (Oskar Heil)
1938 Early reports of Si rectifiers by Hans Hollmann and Jürgen
Rottgardt
1947 Transistor (Ge) invented by Bardeen, Brattain, and
Shockley at the Bell Telephone Laboratories
1951 First practical field effect transistor
1952 Single crystal Si produced
1954 SiO2 mask process developed
1958 First integrated circuit invented by Jack Kilby
1959 Planar processing methods, precursors of modern
integrated circuit fabrication methods, created by Noyce and
Moore
1960 First practical metal-oxide-silicon transistor
1960 First patent on a light emitting diode (J.W. Allen and P.E.
Gibbons)
1962 Transistor-transistor logic
1962 First practical visible light emitting diode
1962 First laser diode
1963 Complementary metal-oxide-silicon transistors provide
lower power switching devices
1968 Metal-oxide-semiconductor memory circuits introduced
1971 First microprocessor
1978 First continuously operating laser diode at room
temperature
1987 Polymer-based light emitters
1992 Er-doped fiber amplifier
1997 Introduction of Cu-based interconnects
1.3 AN ISSUE OF SCALE
- In 1965, Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors
per square inch had doubled every year since the integrated
circuit was invented in 1958. This has come to be known as
Moore’s Law

-The number of devices grew to

hundreds in the 1960’s,
-Thousands to tens of thousands in
the 1970’s,
-The current numbers of millions to
tens of millions.

Figure 1.2: Shows the trend known as Moore’s Law for microprocessor
circuit density. The minimum feature size has decreased proportionate
to the square root of the circuit density. Each plotted point
corresponds to a marketed product.
Figure 1.3: A schematic diagram of a state-of-the-art field-effect transistor such as that
discussed here. The current densities (105 A cm-1) are sufficient to cause conductors
to fail, the fields across the gate dielectric (5x106 V cm-1) are barely supportable by
even the nearly perfect SiO2 gate dielectric, the number of dopant atoms in the channel
limits the practical dopant concentrations to parts per thousand typically, and the total
number of electrons transferred through the device is so small that noise becomes
significant.
-Advanced production device dimensions : 0.1 µm
-The challenges of producing a device of this scale : doping of
the semiconductor and the electron current density
-A transistor with a control region length and width of ~ 0.1 µm
(10-5 cm) and a thickness of 50 nm (5x10-6 cm) The control
volume is 5x10-16 cm3.
-As the atom density of silicon is 5x1022 atoms cm-3, the critical
volume of current transistors contains only 25 million atoms.
-Doping the semiconductor with one part per million impurity
atoms (5x1016 cm-3), the control region would contain only 25
impurity atoms.
-The removal of a single dopant atom would correspond to a 4%
change in doping level. Such doping levels do not provide
adequate conductivity or reproducibility.
-Small devices should have doping levels closer to 1x1019 cm-3
or 0.02% (at or near the solubility limit for the dopant). The
control volume contains 5000 dopant atoms.
-Reduction in scale of five in the lateral dimensions (0.02 µm)
with no reduction of thickness, the control volume would
contain only 1000 dopant atoms at the higher doping level.
-A variation of only 10 dopant atoms corresponds to a 1%
change in doping level.
Such changes can affect the resulting performance.

-Typical devices now operate at 109 Hz (1 GHz)

-Current of 1 amp flowing for the corresponding cycle time 1ns
(10-9 s) transfers only ~2x109 electrons.
- Current of 1 nA transfers only one or two electrons in a
nanosecond.
-A reasonable number of electrons to activate a device is of the
order of a few thousand, corresponding to a required current of
a few microamps in each cycle.
-The 0.1 micron device : a current of 10 µA (10-5 A) would
correspond to a current density of 2x105 A cm-2.
-Current densities of this magnitude produce an “electron wind”
with sufficient momentum to push atoms along the conductor.
This phenomenon of “electromigration” has been one of the
long-standing causes of device failures limiting the lifetime of
operating integrated circuits.
-Current densities are very high, threatening to melt devices
during operation, insulators are beginning to fail.
-Insulator SiO2 grown by thermal oxidation of Si wafers.
Such oxides can support fields of up to 10 million volts
per cm. These fields mean that a 1 V potential requires a
minimum of 1 nm (10-7 cm) of oxide if there are no defects or
thickness changes present.
- At this voltage, oxide of 2 nm are required.
-Shrinking the overall device dimensions has required shrinking
the oxide dielectrics. Oxides are approaching 1 nm thick
-This has required reduction of the voltages, which produce
dramatic changes in the design of switching transistors.
- The development of new dielectric materials with higher
dielectric constants.
1.4 DEFINING ELECTRONIC MATERIALS

Figure 1.4: Shows the primary application of the various elements in the
periodic table in microelectronics. Elements left blank are used only in
very rare applications or are not used at all. Many elements such as Al
have a number of applications. In the case of Al, these include as a
contact/metallization, a semiconductor component, a dopant, and in
insulators. Element symbols shown in gray are very rarely used.
The most common elements used in microelectronics are in
groups IIIa to Va.
Group Va elements are largely used in compound
semiconductor form, and as dopants in the group IV
semiconductors.
Group IVa elements include the common semiconductors Si
and Ge as well as C.
The Group IIIa elements include the excellent electrical
conductor Al, elements found in semiconducting compounds
with group Va elements, and as dopants in group IVa
semiconductors.
Group IIb elements form compound semiconductors with the
chalcogenides (group VIb elements) and have a variety of
other uses.
-The most common conductors : group Ib elements Cu and Au
with Ag also occasionally used.
-Transition metals are commonly used in compound form
either as silicides or nitrides, primarily as stable contact
materials bridging between Si and a highly conductive metal,
-The rare earths are not used extensively (Erbium, Gadolinium
Etc.).
-The IIa elements such as calcium are used as conductors or
contacts,
-Finally, the group Ia alkali metals are rarely used because of
their reactivity and rapid diffusion rates in many materials
Both group Ia and IIa elements are increasingly used, for
example, in organic electronic devices.
1.5 PURITY
The fundamental property concerning electronic materials is
purity.
In many cases extreme measures are taken to prevent
contamination.
- The contamination problem is dealt with in microelectronic
applications.
-Aluminum oxide has often been used as the packaging
material for military-specification computer chips because of
its outstanding resistance to penetration by contaminants.
-The original packages were made from standard aluminum
oxide powder produced directly from bauxite ore.
-There is typically a very low level of uranium oxide
contamination in this material.
-This tiny amount uranium led to false data in the information
stored in the chips.
- To avoid this, the aluminum oxide must be decomposed
electrochemically to aluminum and oxygen.
-The aluminum is then converted to a vapor compound and
purified by fractional distillation.
-Finally, the compound is reacted with purified oxygen to
produce electronic-grade aluminum oxide.
-It is a lot of trouble to go through to get rid of a few uranium
atoms, but it turns out to be necessary.