A new technology for manufacturing the dielectric isolation of elements of microelectronic devices by oxidizing grooves in single-crystal silicon

The formation of the dielectric isolation of elements of microelectronic devices by oxidizing grooves in single-crystal silicon is considered. The new technological process makes it possible to shorten the manufacturing cycle and to improve the reliability and parameters of devices. It is shown that this result is attained by substantially shortening the time of oxidation of silicon, suppressing the "bird's beak" irregularity, and reducing the capacitance of the metal-insulator-semiconductor structure through the etching of grooves with certain geometric parameters in silicon nitride. These parameters are the groove width 0.5-1.5 μm, the ratio of the width to the spacing between the grooves 0.56: 0.44, and the groove depth, which is larger than the width. The results of two-dimensional physical simulation support the advantages of the new technology over the standard process. The simulation was accomplished with the use of the SSUPREM4 program of the Silvaco bundled software. © 2010 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.