Shin-etsu Handotai Co., Ltd.

Hitoshi Tsunoda

Kiyotaka Takano

Hitoshi Habuka

Masatake Katayama

Masanori Mayuzumi

Naoto Tate

Takehito Ushiki

The present invention provides an SOI wafer having at least an SOI layer, in which a plain orientation of the SOI layer is off-angled from {110} only in a direction to &#x3c;100&#x3e;, and an off-angle is from 5 minutes to 2 degrees, and a method of producing an SOI wafer comprising at least bonding a base wafer and a bond wafer consisting of a silicon single crystal, and forming an SOI layer by thinning the bond wafer, wherein the bond wafer is used where a plain orientation thereof is off-angled from {110} only in a direction to &#x3c;100&#x3e;, and an off-angle is from 5 minutes to 2 degrees. Thereby, there can be provided an SOI wafer having both high uniformity of film thickness and good micro-roughness to be suitable for fabricating high speed devices, and provided a method of producing the SOI wafer.

SOI wafer and a method of producing the same

There are disclosed a semiconductor wafer which has undulation components on wafer back surface and/or wafer front surface of 10 &mgr;m or less represented in terms of power spectrum density at least for the components at a wavelength of 10 mm; method for producing a semiconductor wafer by polishing front surface of the semiconductor wafer which is held at its back surface, which utilizes a semiconductor wafer to be polished having undulation components on wafer back surface of 10 &mgr;m or less represented in terms of power spectrum density at least for the components at a wavelength of 10 mm; and wafer chuck provided with a holding surface for holding a wafer by chucking, wherein the holding surface has undulation components of 10 &mgr;m or less represented in terms of power spectrum density at least for the components at a wavelength of 10 mm. According to the present invention, undulation components of semiconductor wafers can be quantitatively evaluated, and thereby there can be provided a semiconductor wafer free from surface undulation components, a method for producing such a semiconductor wafer, and a wafer chuck therefor. Such undulation components may cause problems upon lithography, device separation and the like in the device-processing steps.

Semiconductor wafer, method for producing the same, and wafer chuck

The invention is predicated in an experimental finding that by setting the temperature in a wafer case, which is made of polypropyrene or like organic resin and in which wafers are stored, to -50.degree. to 15.degree. C., preferably to -50.degree. to 10.degree. C., it is possible to make the increase of organic materials attached during the storage of the wafers substantially to zero. The invention also concerns a method of determining the amount of organic materials attached to wafers, which comprises the steps of allowing a predetermined amount of water drop to be formed on the surface of a wafer, then measuring the angle .alpha. between the wafer and a line drawn from the contact point of 3 phases consisting of the water drop 10, the wafer 1 and gas on the wafer surface to the top of the water drop 10, and thereby obtaining the contact angle .theta. as .theta.=2.alpha., and then determining the amount of organic materials from the contact angle .theta..

Method of storing and transporting wafers and method of determining the

A method for vapor-phase growth which allows an epiwafer of a smooth surface free from microroughness to be produced is provided. This method comprises a step of heating up a silicon single crystal substrate in an ambience of an inert gas started at a temperature of less than 800.degree. C. and a step of removing a native oxide film formed on the surface of the silicon single crystal substrate by etching with hydrogen gas in an ambience of hydrogen gas at a temperature of not less than 950.degree. C. and not more than 1190.degree. C. prior to the vapor-phase growth.

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Gunma, Japan

Hitoshi Tsunoda