Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, Ghaziabad

Branch - ECE
VLSI TECHNOLOGY (KEC-053)

Ion Implantation
By

Dr. Pankaj Goel

Assistant Professor
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, Ghaziabad
 Index
• Introduction
• Diffusion versus Ion Implantation
• Ion Implantation Schematic and Working Principle
• Range Theory
• Stopping Mechanisms
• Damage and Annealing
• Channeling
• Shadowing
• Reference
 Introduction
• Ion implantation is a low-temperature technique for the
introduction of impurities (dopants) into
semiconductors and offers more controlled doping than
diffusion.
• In diffusion, always the surface concentration is going to
be the highest concentration and after that, it is going to
follow either the complementary error function or the
Gaussian profile.
Diffusion versus Ion Implantation
Schematic of an Ion Implanter
 Ion Implantation – Principle of Working
• During ion implantation, dopants are ionized, accelerated and
directed at a silicon substrate.

• They enter the crystal lattice, collide with silicon atoms and
gradually lose energy, finally coming to rest at some depth
within the lattice.

• The average depth can be controlled by adjusting the

acceleration energy.

• The dopant dose can be controlled by monitoring the ion

current during the implantation.
 Ion Implantation system
• The basic requirement for an ion-implantation system is to deliver a
beam of ions of a particular type and energy to the surface of a silicon
wafer.

• Dopant source is a compound of the dopant material and it is usually

a gaseous compound of the dopant material.

• In the figure above, there is a high-voltage enclosure containing many

of the system components on the left hand side. A gas source feeds a
small quantity of source gas such as BF3 into the ion source where a
heated filament causes the molecules to breakup into charged
fragments. This ion plasma contains the desired ion together with
many other species from other fragments and contamination.

• An extraction voltage, around 20kV, causes the charged ions to move

out of the ion source into the analyzer.
 Ion Implantation system
• The pressure in the remainder of the machine is kept below 10-6 Torr
to minimize ion scattering by gas molecules.

• The magnetic field of the analyzer is chosen such that only ions with
the desired charge to mass ratio can travel through without being
blocked by the analyzer walls.

• A charged particle of mass m moves with a velocity v. That m and v

characterize the particular ion species; it is going to be different for
different species of ions.

• Surviving ions continue to the acceleration tube, where they are

accelerated to the implantation energy.

• Apertures ensure that the beam is well collimated. The beam is then
scanned over the surface of the wafer using electrostatic deflection
plates.
 Ion Implantation system
• A variable aperture within an aperture device is used to shape the
ion beam before the substrate is implanted by shaped ion beam.
• Collimated beams are used in microscopy to provide a well-
focused and stable light source for imaging. By using a collimated
beam, microscopes can produce high-resolution images with
minimal distortion or aberration.

• Electrostatic deflection is the method of aligning the path of

charged particles by applying the electric field between
the deflecting plates.
 Ion Implantation system
• A commercial ion implanter is typically 6m long, 3m wide, and
2m high, and consumes 45kW of power, and can process 200
wafers per hour (dose 1015 ions/cm2, 100mm wafers).
Range Theory
 Stopping mechanisms
Nuclear stopping: when the energetic ion loses energy by colliding
with the lattice atom, loosing energy to the lattice and in the
process creating defects.

The energetic ion beam is imparting some of its energy to the

lattice atom by colliding and if that energy is high enough, then
the lattice atom can get displaced from its original site and it leads
to defects in semiconductor.

Electronic stopping: the energetic ion beam supplies the energy to

the bound electrons. In the process, the bound electrons become
free electrons, because they gain the energy and that is called
electronic stopping.
 Ion Stopping
Nuclear stopping Electronic stopping
Main stopping mechanism Inelastic collision with electrons
of the lattice atoms
Caused by collision with nuclei of
the lattice atoms Energy transfer is very small
(deep penetration)
Scattered significantly and
causes crystal damage Negligible crystal structure
damage
Elastic collision

50
STOPPING POWER AND ION VELOCITY

Low Energies Intermediate Energies High Energies

I II III
Stopping Power

Nuclear Stopping

Electronic
Stopping

B
Ion Velocity
As
 Implantation Process: Damage
• Dopant Ions collide with lattice atoms and knock them out of lattice grid
• Implant area on substrate becomes amorphous structure

Before Implantation After Implantation

 Implantation Process: Damage
• As each ion travels, it undergoes a series of nuclear collisions. Every
time the ion is scattered, a fraction of its energy is transferred to a
target atom, which is displaced from its original position.

• The binding energy of a lattice site is only 10 to 20 eV, so it is easy to

transfer enough energy to free an atom from its position and make it
travel as a second projectile. Now the ion and the displaced target
atom travel and cause further displacements. So the energy is spread
over many particles.
 Implantation Process: Damage
• The result of one incident ion has been the displacement of many
target atoms through nuclear scattering. After many ions have been
implanted, an initially crystalline wafer will be so disrupted that it
changes to a highly disordered state.

• If the temperature of the wafer is increased, then through annealing,

repair of the wafer structure occurs.
 Annealing Process
• Introducing dopant atoms into a semiconductor is only first
step in changing its electrical properties.

• Dopant Implantation damages the target and displaces many

lattice atoms for each implanted ion.

• Annealing is required to repair lattice damage and put dopant

atoms on substitutional sites where they will be electrically
active. Dopant atom must be in single crystal structure and bond
with four silicon atoms to be activated as donor (N-type) or
acceptor (P-type).

• Thermal energy from high temperature helps amorphous

atoms to recover single crystal structure.
 Annealing Process
• Annealing is the heat-treatment process used to restore
disordered semiconductor wafers to single crystal
structure, after selected 'dopant' impurities have been
implanted into the wafers (as energetic ions) to adjust the
electrical conductivity.

• The success of annealing is often measured in terms of the

fraction of the dopant that is electrically active.

• For VLSI, the main challenge in annealing is not simply to

repair damage and activate dopants (which any long, high-
temperature annealing will achieve), but to do so while
minimizing diffusion so that shallow implants remain shallow.

• In recent technologies, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) is used

where annealing times are of the order of seconds.
Lattice Atoms Dopant Atom

Thermal Annealing
Lattice Atoms Dopant Atom

Thermal Annealing
Lattice Atoms Dopant Atom

Thermal Annealing
 Dopant Atom
Lattice Atoms

Thermal Annealing
Implantation Processes: Channeling
• If the incident angle is right, ion can travel long
distance without collision with lattice atoms.
• It causes uncontrollable dopant profile.

Lots of collisions

Very few collisions

 Lattice Atoms

Channeling Ion

Collisional Ion

Wafer
Surface

CHANNELING EFFECT
• As the dose increases, the amount of channelling becomes less.
The higher the dose is, the more is the disorder. You are forcing
more number of energetic ions onto the semiconductor surface
and in the process you are creating more disorder, more
damages, so that the sample surface starts resembling an
amorphous target and then the profile is going to be a
Gaussian.

• On the other hand, when dose is much smaller and the ion beam
is directed along a major crystallographic axis that is <110>, then
the disorder is less. The target resembles not an amorphous
target, but a crystalline target and it is possible for the ion
beams to find a channel and move through a much greater
distance.
 Collisional Channeling Collisional

Wafer
Surface

Post-collision Channeling
 Collisional Channeling
Dopant Concentration

Distance from surface

POST-COLLISION CHANNELING
 LATTICE DAMAGE WITH ONE ION
Transferring small amount of energy

Light Ion

66
Boron ion
Long narrow branch of damage

Maximum Damage in small

Region

Heavy Ion

Phosphorous
ion Single Crystal Silicon
Shadowing Effect
Ion Beam

Polysilicon

Doped Region
Substrate

Shadowed Region
SHADOWING EFFECT

After Annealing and Diffusion

Polysilicon

Doped Region
Substrate
Ion Implantation - Important Questions

What is meant by annealing? 2 Marks

Explain ion-implantation process, its advantages and

disadvantages. 10 Marks
What is ion implantation? Why is ion-implantation preferred over
diffusion for impurity doping? Explain briefly ion implantation
technique with labelled sketch.
10 Marks

Explain ion implantation technique with labelled sketch. Also

mention its advantages and disadvantages. 10 Marks
 Reference Book

S. M. SZE, “VLSI Technology”, McGraw Hill Education.

Thank You