Shin-etsu Handotai Co., Ltd.

Katsuo Yoshizawa

Kiyoshi Mitani

Masatake Katayama

Masatake Nakano

Tsutomu Sato

A method for manufacturing an SOI wafer. The method includes forming an oxide film on a surface of at least one silicon wafer of two silicon wafers. The method also includes bonding the silicon wafers through the oxide film at room temperature to form a room temperature bond end, one of the two silicon wafers being a bond wafer. The method further includes heat treating the wafers in an oxidizing atmosphere to form a heat treatment bond end. Thereafter, an outer periphery of the bond wafer is removed from an outer peripheral edge of the bond wafer up to a region between the room temperature bond end and the heat treatment bond end. The thickness of the bond wafer is reduced to form an SOI layer.

Method for manufacturing SOI wafer including heat treatment in an oxidizing atmosphere

A method of manufacturing a bonding substrate is disclosed. An oxide film is formed on the surface of at least one of two semiconductor substrates, and the two substrates are brought into close contact with each other via the oxide film. The substrates are heat-treated in an oxidizing atmosphere in order to firmly join the substrates together. Subsequently, an unjoined portion at the periphery of a device-fabricating substrate is completely removed, and the thickness of the device-fabricating substrate is reduced to a desired thickness so as to yield a thin film. The surface of the thin film is then etched through vapor-phase etching in order to make the thickness of the thin film uniform. In the method, the oxide film on the unjoined portion of at least the support substrate is removed before the surface of the thin film is subjected to vapor-phase etching. The method prevents a groove from being formed in the surface of the unjoined portion (terrace portion) of the support substrate (base wafer) even when the surface of the thin film undergoes vapor phase etching.

Method of manufacturing a bonding substrate

SOI (silicon-on-insulator) substrates are efficiently produced by a method which comprises superposing and bonding at least three single crystal silicon wafers through the medium of a SiO.sub.2 film formed on the surface of each of the wafers and cutting the bonded wafers along planes perpendicular to the direction of superposition thereof. The cutting can be infallibly attained with high dimensional accuracy without entailing such adverse phenomena as the vibration of the blade of a cutting tool by providing at the portions destined to be cut the grooves for guiding the blade of the cutting tool in advance of the cutting work.

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Nagano-ken, Japan

Katsuo Yoshizawa