Metallic impurities, such as Fe, Cu, and Au, become generation and recombination centers for minority carriers when combined with oxide precipitates or silicon self-interstitial clusters. As these centers may cause leakage and discharge in silicon dev...
Metallic impurities, such as Fe, Cu, and Au, become generation and recombination centers for minority carriers when combined with oxide precipitates or silicon self-interstitial clusters. As these centers may cause leakage and discharge in silicon devices, their prevention through gettering of the metallic impurities is an important issue. In this article, key aspects of intrinsic gettering, such as oxygen control, wafer cleaning, device area denudation, and bulk oxygen precipitation are discussed, and a practical method of implementing intrinsic gettering is outlined.