For advanced Ultra-Shallow Junction formation, even fast spike anneals cannot provide the required junction depth control with high electrical activation.Ü Processes such as Laser Thermal Processing have shown promise, but face daunting integration issues.

Vortek has developed Flash Assist Rapid Thermal Processing (fRTP) to meet the USJ needs of the industry for the 90nm node and below.Ü fRTP combines the controlled, fast bulk heating of VortekÌs iRTP technology with a unique approach to heat the device active layer to very high temperatures for extremely short times in order to achieve high electrical activation with essentially no dopant diffusion. Vortek accomplishes this by providing an additional source of radiant energy to the active side of the wafer in a very short pulse or “flash” lasting only milliseconds. This heats the topmost layer of the wafer by several hundred degrees at heating rates approaching one million degrees C per second! Since the bulk of the wafer is not heated significantly, it acts as an efficient heat sink and once the energy source is removed, the active layer is cooled at a comparable rate. This reduces the effective time at temperature by many orders of magnitude and allows higher temperatures to be used, thereby giving higher activation. Since the entire wafer surface is heated, throughput is high and the integration issues of LTP are avoided.

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