Modeling of Thermal Oxidation and Stress Effects

Thermal Oxidation is one of the most important

process steps in semiconductor fabrication to produce

high quality isolation layers. A chemical reaction

converts silicon into silicon dioxide which has more

than twice of the original volume. This is the main

source for stress and displacements in the oxidized

structure.

Stress in copper interconnects can be essential for

the life time of an integrated circuit, because it

can support material transport and lead to void

formation.

During the fabrication of sensors, where thin film

deposition is often used, an intrinsic stress is

generated in the layers which can cause unwanted

deformation in free standing structures.

After an introduction the author describes the

advanced oxidation model and shows by means of

pictures the verified simulation results. A highlight

of this book is the chapter about the Finite Element

Method (FEM) which is used to solve the mathematical

formulation numerically. In a comprehensible way the

author describes how to apply FEM in practice, so

that the reader of this book should be able to

discretize many other kinds of differential equations

and solve them with a computer, which is basic for

simulation.