US 7383696 B2
A silica glass crucible includes a stable, bubble-free inner layer and an opaque outer layer, both layers demonstrating reduced bubble growth during a Czochralski process. When used in the CZ process, little volume change is observed in the crucible wall, and the crucible has little influence on melt level. The present crucible is especially suited for slow silicon ingot pulling with reduced crystalline defects. The fusion process of the present invention controls the dynamic gas balance at the fusion front where formed grain is melted to dense fused silica.
1. A silica glass crucible having multiple layers comprising:
an inner layer having a thickness of greater than approximately 2.0 mm and after a vacuum bake test in which the crucible is heated at approximately 1650 degrees C for approximately three hours at a pressure of approximately 0.1 Pa containing less than about 1% bubbles by volume in cross-sectional area, the diameter of the bubbles being less than about 0.3 mm;
an outer layer having an apparent density after the vacuum bake test of equal to or greater than about 2.05 grams/cm3; and
a crucible wall comprising at least the inner and outer layers, said wall increasing in thickness equal to or less than about 3% after the vacuum bake test.
2. The crucible of
3. A quartz crucible with an outer diameter of about 620 millimeters or more comprising:
an opaque silica glass outer layer; and
a transparent silica glass inner layer greater than approximately 2 millimeters thickness and having less than about 1% bubbles by volume in cross-sectional area after heating at approximately 1650 degrees C for approximately three hours at a pressure of approximately 0.1 Pa.
4. The quartz crucible of
5. The quartz crucible of
6. The quartz crucible of
7. The quartz crucible of
8. A fused silica crucible made according to the following method:
rotating a mold having an inner mold surface defining a mold cavity and further having plurality of air channels formed in the mold and communicating with the inner surface;
forming silica grain in the rotating crucible mold;
heating the formed silica grain by applying electric power to electrodes positioned in the mold cavity;
evacuating gas from the mold cavity at a first flow rate with an evacuation system configured to draw gas from the mold cavity into the air channels;
continuing heating until an inner crucible layer approximately 2.0 mm thick is formed;
changing the flow rate of gas evacuation to a second flow rate; and
continuing heating until a second crucible layer is formed.
9. The quartz crucible of
10. The quartz crucible of
11. The quartz crucible of
12. The quartz crucible of
13. The quartz crucible of
14. A fused silica crucible made according to the following method:
feeding silica grain along an inner surface of a rotating mold to arrange the grain in a crucible shape having a radially inner surface open to an interior space of the mold and a radially outer surface adjacent an inner wall of the mold;
heating the grain from the interior space of the mold;
drawing air through the grain and into ports distributed in the inner wall of the mold;
evolving gas from the heated grain;
establishing a fission front that begins at the radially inner surface and proceeds toward the radially outer surface;
maintaining a pressure differential between the fission front and the inner wall of the mold that draws gas away from the fission front at a rate faster than it is introduced until the silica grain forms a transparent glass layer greater than approximately 2 millimeters; and
thereafter reducing the pressure differential between the fission front and the inner wall of the mold to a rate at which gas is drawn away from the fission front at a rate slower than it is introduced.
15. The quartz crucible of
16. The quartz crucible of
17. The quartz crucible of
18. The quartz crucible of
19. The quartz crucible of
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of silica crucibles and more particularly to a silica crucible having a multi-layer wall with a bubble-free inner layer that is subject to very little bubble growth when holding molten silicon and an outer layer that is opaque and stable.
2. Background of the Invention
Silicon wafers used in the semiconductor industry are made from ingots of single crystalline silicon. Such ingots generally are manufactured using the Czochralski (CZ) process. In the CZ process, metallic silicon is charged in a silica glass crucible housed within a susceptor that is received in a crystal growth chamber. A heater surrounding the susceptor heats the charge thus melting the silicon. A single silicon crystal is pulled from the silicon melt at or near the melting temperature of silicon.
At operating temperatures, the innermost layer of a silica crucible reacts with the silicon melt by dissolving into the silicon melt during the CZ-process. Any bubbles in the inner layer tend to open to the melt during such dissolution. This is a source of particles in the melt, which may disturb the single crystal structure of the pulled ingot. A bubble-free inner layer has been a critical requirement for a crucible adapted for the CZ process.
Recently, demand in the semiconductor industry is for large diameter wafers, e.g., 200 mm or 300 mm in diameter. Pulling multiple ingots by recharging silicon after each pull has became a popular modification of the traditional CZ process. As a result, the CZ process operating period is increased, frequently to more than one hundred hours. This CZ process means that the thickness of the bubble-free layer must also be increased. In the case of a crucible used for 150 mm-diameter wafer production, a crucible having bubble-free inner layer thickness of one millimeter was sufficient. It is not uncommon, however, to dissolve more than two millimeters of a silica crucible inner layer when pulling 200 mm or 300 mm diameter ingots.
In addition, the longer operating time means that bubble growth in the inner layer during the CZ process must be minimal. A miniscule bubble in a fused crucible may grow in size during operation. Larger bubbles are prone to release larger particles, causing potentially greater harm to the ingot. When the CZ process proceeds for long times, evolution of bubbles is routinely observed. These growing bubbles result from gas that is dissolved in the inner layer and may be essentially invisible after the crucible is formed. Minimizing evolution and growth of bubbles is very important for crucibles used in modern CZ process applications.
Although it is important to minimize bubbles and bubble growth in the inner layer, it is well known that the outer layer of a multi-layer crucible used for the CZ process must include bubbles to make the outer layer opaque. This creates a layer that diffuses thermal radiation. The importance of the mechanical stiffness and integrity of the crucible sidewall has been recently identified for large crucibles, such as those of 550 mm diameter (nominal 22-inch) or greater. We have found that bubble growth in the opaque layer results in a swelling of the crucible wall. During the CZ process the crucible resides in a rigid graphite susceptor. It nonetheless experiences an increase in wall volume. This volume change causes a serious quality problem in the pulled ingot, especially when the silicon melt level movement is relatively low or the ingot pulling speed is slow. But all other things being equal, slow pulling produces high quality ingots. As a result, it is desirable to prevent wall volume changes to permit slow pulling speeds.
One aspect of the present invention provides a silica glass crucible comprising an inner layer that is thick enough for prolonged operation and is free of bubbles and bubble growth. The crucible further comprises a stable outer layer that shows little swelling during multiple ingot pulls.
The crucible has a bubble-free (“BF”) and no-bubble-growth (“NBG”) clear inner layer, which is 2 mm or more thick, and a stable opaque outer layer. Stability of the outer layer is determined using a vacuum bake test (“VBT”), in which wall thickness change, which corresponds to apparent density, is measured after baking the crucible at approximately 1650 degrees C. for approximately three hours at a pressure of approximately 0.1 Pa. More specifically, an observed thickness increase of the present crucible after the VBT is less than 1%, and the apparent density after the VBT is more than 2.05 g/cm3.
A silica glass crucible according to this aspect of the invention is made by introducing bulk silica grain, comprising essentially quartz grain, into a rotating crucible mold. This forms a bulky wall. The formed grain is then heated to fuse a crucible while a pump communicating with the mold draws air through the formed grain, gas released from the calcined grain, and gas released from grain as it fuses. The total gas is dynamically balanced with the conductance of a flow passageway connecting the inner mold surface with the pump and the evacuation power of the pump. This dynamic balance is controlled to keep a balance of mass at the gaseous phase at the fusion front in the formed grain less than a threshold value that is required to make a BF or NBG silica glass layer.
The apparatus to make the crucible has a flow passageway connecting the inner mold surface with the pump, in which flow resistance is low enough, and a pumping power is high enough to achieve the required dynamic balance. The flow passageway can include structures such as, e.g., piping, valves, gauges, and the gas-permeable mold itself. The flow resistance of the gas-permeable mold can be controlled using channels in the graphite mold and a porous material facing, such as graphite, on the inside of the mold.
The heat to fuse the formed grain must be intense enough to cook the fused silica so that gas is not released during the CZ process. Such gas release causes formation of bubbles and bubble growth in the crucible wall. This gas release results in swelling of the crucible wall, which in turn causes perturbations of the melt level.
In more detail, one aspect of the present invention provides a silica glass crucible suitable for use in a CZ process. The crucible has a bubble-free inner layer that is 2 mm or more in thickness and an opaque outer layer. The wall thickness change after a VBT, which is an accelerated simulation of a CZ process, is equal to or less than 3%, preferably less than 1%. In other words, the apparent density of the crucible wall after the VBT is equal to or greater than 2.05 g/cm3. This small thickness change is a result of combination of minimal bubble growth in the opaque layer and minimal bubble evolution and growth in the inner layer.
After the VBT, the inner bubble-free layer contains less than 1% bubbles by volume in cross-sectional area and the individual bubbles will not grow more than 0.3 mm in diameter. Bubble content is measured as a ratio of the sum of bubble image area divided by total area in a cross section picture of transmission optical microscope. The bubble size is also measured using a transmission optical microscope.
The wall thickness change of the entire wall is measured with a micrometer. The opaque layer is preferably 50% to 70% of the wall and 25% at minimum to satisfy good heat diffusing characteristics. The apparent density of the opaque layer after a VBT is preferably greater than 2.05 g/cm3.
Turning attention now to
A plurality of air channels, like air channels 18, 20 (viewable in both
Mold 12 can be rotated by a motor (not shown) about a vertical axis 36. A set of conventional electrodes 38, 40 is vertically movable into and out of the mold interior. The electrodes are connected to a conventional DC power supply 42 that can apply power to the electrodes in a selectable range between about 300 KVA and 1200 KVA. When sufficient power is applied to electrodes 12, 14, an extremely hot plasma gas ball 38 forms around the electrodes.
Mold 12 contains a layer 46 of partially fused silica, which is shown partially broken away to expose mold surface 14. Layer 46 includes an inner layer 46 a and an outer layer 46 b. Together layers 46 a, 46 b comprise the wall of a crucible formed in the mold. A thin layer of unfused grain 46 c is left because temperature at the inner mold surface cannot reach the melting point of the formed grain.
Generally describing the operation of system 10, natural quartz grain is placed in mold 12 as it rotates about axis 36. Preferably, the outer layer of the crucible, i.e., the first grain received in the mold is doped with aluminum in the manner described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/906,879, filed Jul. 16, 2001, which is assigned to the assignee of the present application and is hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes. Once all the grain is received in the mold, power is applied to electrodes 38, 40 and the pump (not visible) is turned on. Once the electrodes heat the grain to the point were the grains on the innermost surface of wall 46 a being to fuse, a fusion front forms and proceeds over time from the innermost surface of the crucible to near mold surface 14, where the fusion front saturates. As will be explained, when the gas evolved from the heated and fusing grain plus the gas drawn through the unfused grain, through both the inner surface of layer 46 a and the upper surface of wall 46, bears a predetermined relationship with the pump power and the conductivity of the flow passageway, the qualities of the formed crucible may be precisely controlled.
There are several requirements of balance for the key parameters. First, assume the amount of fused silica as a function of time t is G(t).
Initially, the rate of fused silica increases slowly due to time spent preheating the silica to the required melting temperature. A fused silica-grain interface then proceeds promptly until it approaches the mold inner surface. At a certain point, the fusion front saturates, leaving unfused grain between the mold and the fused crucible. It has been found that G(t) can be approximately expressed by an error function.
When fusion proceeds, a significant amount of gas is evolved proportional to the fusion rate. The rate of gas evolution, V1, is defined as gas volume released by fusion per weight of fused grain per unit time:
Here A is a proportional constant.
The formed grain is not dense enough to keep the fusion front isolated from the environment. Even if the inner surface of the crucible is covered by a dense glassy phase, air can pass through the unfused grain between the fused wall and the mold at the top of the crucible. The evacuation system therefore should handle this leaking gas in addition to the evolved gas. Leaking gas is found to be proportional to the amount of unfused grain. More exactly, it is found to be proportional to the third power of (1−erf(t)), where erf(t) is the error function and B is a proportional constant.
These two parameters, V1 and V2, are the main sources of gas to be removed by the evacuation means. The amount of evacuated gas is expressed in equation (3), where P is pumping power and C is normalized conductance of the flow passageway, i.e., 0≦C≦1.
At the fusion front of the grain-fused silica interface, gas flow is balanced between V3 and (V1+V2). If the total balance, V1+V2−V3, becomes positive, fused glass will contain more dissolved gas; if it exceeds a certain threshold, Q1, bubbles are introduced in the fused silica. If the balance is negative, fused silica contains less dissolved gas. A second threshold, Q2, can be used to make bubble-free glass, and another threshold, Q3, for no-bubble-growth characteristics. Here Q1 is not necessarily equal to Q2.
Q3 and Q2 are negative as expected. It has been determined that Q3 is more negative than Q2; i.e., Q3<Q2. After the VBT, which is an accelerated simulation of a CZ process, evolution or growth of bubbles is observed in traditional crucibles-even if the crucible is bubble-free as made. Evolution and growth of these bubbles results from the release of dissolved gas in the inner layer. The dissolved gas is related to the level of negativity of the balance (V1+V2−V3).
It is also found that bubble growth characteristics are strongly affected by the fusion temperature. Because the fusion rate increases with fusion temperature, high fusion rate results in the increase of released gas. It is critical to increase fusion temperature to meet NBG requirements. But if substantially all of the increased gas is not evacuated as it forms, bubbles will form, which is disadvantageous in the inner layer.
The goal in crucible manufacture is to design the apparatus to keep (V1+V2−V3) properly negative to satisfy BF+NBG requirement for the inner layer and NBG requirement for outer layer, while simultaneously meeting the layer thickness requirements. More specifically, (V1+V2−V3) can be controlled to create a BF+NBG inner layer and a NBG outer layer while making large crucibles (i.e., nominal sizes larger than 24-inch) using greater than 300 KVA DC arc supply (and preferably more than 950 KVA), and using an evacuation pump having a capacity of greater than 200 cubic meter per hour (free air displacement) and preferably greater than 350 cubic meter/hour.
The most prominent constraint point to creating such crucibles is the flow passageway, such as piping, joints and valves. It must have a greater than 10 cm2 minimum cross-sectional area and preferably equal to or greater than about 50 mm circular diameter (that is, an area of about 19.6 cm2). This dimension is in sharp contrast to structures of the prior art, wherein such piping typically has a diameter of about 12 mm (i.e, an area of about 1.13 cm2).
The narrowest cross section is located at the interface with the formed grain; it is imperative that these channels be kept small enough to prevent grain from being drawn by reduced pressure into the evacuation system.
The individual openings of the flow passageway at the grain interface are each preferably at least 0.2 square centimeters (cm2), and more preferably at least 0.6 cm2. The interface is equipped with a porous material, such as a porous graphite plug 26, with a cross-sectional area as abovementioned, and a maximum length of about 25 mm. For mechanical reasons, 12 mm has been found to be optimal.
A method for making the present crucible using the above-mentioned apparatus follows. It has been found that BF and NBG characteristics are primarily determined during transformation from silica grain to fused silica. Neither a pre-heat-treatment (such as calcination of grain) nor a post-heat-treatment (e.g., intense cooking after crucible fusion) is found to significantly alter the BF or NBG characteristics.
Another aspect of the invention is that vacuum level alone does not fully yield BF or NBG control; it is a dynamic balance of introduced and removed gas that has proved is essential. For NBG characteristics, released gas during crucible use in a CZ process is also essential. It has been determined that released gas is closely related to the fusion temperature. In other words, intense cooking is the key for NBG.
As mentioned separately, the crucible wall is required to have a translucent layer on its outer side. One way to achieve this is by reducing evacuation power halfway of the fusion process. The curves in
One can approximate the gas released during the VBT, which subjects the formed crucible to a simulated CZ process, as inversely proportional to the total gas evolved during fusion. In other words, the more gas evolves from the fused silica during fusion, the less is dissolved in the silica. And it is this dissolved gas that evolves into bubbles when the crucible is reheated during the CZ or VBT processes. The higher the fusion temperature, the more gas evolves during crucible fusion. As a result, a high fusion temperature is critical to creating NBG crucibles.
The graph for Balance(2) in
In a first example using the parameters of
All of these crucibles are required to have an opaque outer layer, which is created by forming bubbles in the outer layer. In this example, the fusion power was reduced about half way through the process to form bubbles in the outer layer, although this is not reflected in
In a second example that corresponds generally to
In a third example that corresponds generally to
The inner layer includes a band of evolved bubbles 48 after the VBT, which was predicted by the portion of Balance(2) in
The Balance(2) curve is well below the zero line throughout the fusion process, meaning that the crucible will be very stable and will exhibit minimal bubble formation and bubble growth when used in a CZ process.
In a fourth example that corresponds generally to
In this example, pump flow rate was reduced by about 50% half way through the process, although this is not reflected in
Turning now to the microphotographs of
Finally, in a preferred embodiment, according to the
In another example that corresponds generally to the
Silica is a rather fast-sublimating element, and during fusion, silica sublimates from the inner surface. Slower-sublimating elements, such as aluminum, are left in the innermost layer. This phenomenon of aluminum accumulation occurs with other metallic impurities in natural silica grain, e.g. Na, K, Ca, Fe, which may be used as charge compensators. This impure innermost layer, normally less than 20 micrometers, can have negative consequences for a CZ process. Using this approach satisfies goals for purity of the innermost layer while achieving BF and NBG characteristics of the whole wall. This example is an advantageous solution for this compromise.
The fusion power, or cooking intensity, is critical for reducing the dissolved gas, which evolves into bubbles and bubble growth during the VBT or CZ process. It has been found, contrary to the prior art view, that faster fusion does not always produce a better crucible. This finding is contrary to conventional wisdom that the faster the fusion, the better the crucible.
Released gas during fusion over time is shown in
Another way to view the balance that is necessary to achieve desirable crucible characteristics is to consider the mass of the gas evolved and the gas drawn through the grain during fusion, i.e., Gas Total on the models. If the fusion power is high but either the conductance of the flow passageway or the pump capacity, or both, are low, the gas atoms cannot be pumped away from the fusion front at a rate that prevents the gas from being dissolved into the silica. As noted, this causes growth of existing bubbles and evolution of bubbles in the crucible wall during the VBT or CZ process.
But if the fusion power, conductance, and pump capacity are sufficiently high, crucibles can be made in a relatively short time with excellent BF and NBG characteristics. In addition, bubbles in the outer wall can be formed by reducing conductivity or pump speed to a level that causes bubble to form, but not to level that dissolves evolved gas into the silica. As a result, formation of bubbles in the outer layer, which is necessary and desirable, can be accomplished while fusing the crucible to prevent (a) bubbles from forming in the inner layer and (b) bubbles from growing or evolving throughout the crucible wall.
A person skilled in the art will be able to practice the present invention in view of the description present in this document, which is to be taken as a whole. Numerous details have been set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding of the invention. In other instances, well-known features have not been described in detail in order not to obscure unnecessarily the invention.
While the invention has been disclosed in its preferred form, the specific embodiments thereof as disclosed and illustrated herein are not to be considered in a limiting sense. Indeed, it should be readily apparent to those skilled in the art in view of the present description that the invention can be modified in numerous ways. The inventor regards the subject matter of the invention to include all combinations and subcombinations of the various elements, features, functions and/or properties disclosed herein.