Hitachi, Ltd.

Fuji Electric Co., Ltd.

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Agency of Industrial Science and Technology

Kiyokazu Nakagawa

Masanobu Miyao

Nobuyuki Sugii

Shinya Yamaguchi

Eiichi Murakami

Atsushi Kikugawa

Takashi Ohshima

Akio Nishida

Yoshihisa Fujisaki

Shigeyuki Hosoki

Hajime Aoi

Ryo Imura

Fumihiko Uchida

Masakazu Ichikawa

Shigeo Kato

Sumiko Fujisaki

Seang-kee Park

Katsunori Ueno

Yoshinobu Kimura

Haruo Nakazawa

Kenichi Iguchi

Tsunehiro Nakajima

Toshikazu Shimada

Masaaki Ogino

Kiyonori Ohyu

Seong-Kee Park

Masaaki Tachioka

Takuya Maruizumi

Hiroyuki Eto

If a SiOfilm is formed on a semiconductor substrate using TEOS (tetraethylorthosilicate: Si(OCH)), carbon (C) may be mixed in the SiOfilm in some cases. In a SiOfilm, carbon may function as fixed charges. For example, if carbon (C) is mixed in a SiOfilm as a gate insulating film of a MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor), the gate threshold voltage (V) may fluctuate. A semiconductor device using a gallium nitride semiconductor layer is provided. The semiconductor device includes: a silicon dioxide film that is provided at least partially in direct contact with the gallium nitride semiconductor layer and has impurity atoms, wherein the silicon dioxide film contains as the impurity atoms: carbon at concentration higher than 0 cmand lower than 2E+18 cm; and gallium at concentration equal to or lower than 1E+17 cm.

Semiconductor device and semiconductor device manufacturing method

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes providing a semiconductor substrate having a front surface and a back surface; forming a transition metal layer on a surface of the semiconductor substrate; and exposing the semiconductor substrate having the transition metal layer formed thereon to a hydrogen plasma atmosphere formed by microwaves, to cause the transition metal layer to generate heat. During exposure of the semiconductor substrate, a portion of the semiconductor substrate contacting the transition metal layer is heated by a transfer of heat from the transition metal layer and, at an interface of the transition metal layer and the semiconductor substrate, an ohmic contact is formed by reaction of the transition metal layer and the semiconductor substrate, such as to form a transition metal silicide when the semiconductor substrate is silicon carbide. The ohmic contact provides a lower contact resistivity and device properties can be prevented from degrading.

Method for forming metal-semiconductor alloy using hydrogen plasma

In order to provide a semiconductor device having a field effect transistor with a low power consumption and a high speed by use of the combination of Si and an element such as Ge, C or the like of the same group as Si, a strain is applied by a strain applying semiconductor layerto a channel forming layer I having a channel of the field effect transistor formed therein so that the mobility of carriers in the channel is made larger than the mobility of carriers in that material of the channel forming layer which is unstrained.

Semiconductor device and semiconductor substrate having selectively etched portions filled with silicon germanium

In order to provide a semiconductor device having a field effect transistor with a low power consumption and a high speed by use of the combination of Si and an element such as Ge, C or the like of the same group as Si, a strain is applied by a strain applying semiconductor layer 2 to a channel forming layer I having a channel of the field effect transistor formed therein so that the mobility of carriers in the channel is made larger than the mobility of carriers in that material of the channel forming layer which is unstrained.

Semiconductor device and semiconductor substrate

To provide TFT of improved low-temperature polycrystalline layer that has higher electron mobility and assures less fluctuation in manufacture in view of realizing a liquid-crystal display device having a large display area by utilizing a glass substrate. A TFT having higher electron mobility can be realized within the predetermined range of characteristic fluctuation by utilizing the semiconductor thin-film (called quasi single crystal thin-film) formed of poly-crystal grain joined with the {} twin-boundary of Diamond structure as the channel region (namely, active region) of TFT.

Semiconductor device, method of making the same and liquid crystal display device

To provide TFT of improved low-temperature polycrystalline layer that has higher electron mobility and assures less fluctuation in manufacture in view of realizing a liquid-crystal display device having a large display area by utilizing a glass substrate. A TFT having higher electron mobility can be realized within the predetermined range of characteristic fluctuation by utilizing the semiconductor thin-film (called quasi single crystal thin-film) formed of poly-crystal grain joined with the {111} twin-boundary of Diamond structure as the channel region (namely, active region) of TFT.

An electronic apparatus employs a polycrystalline semiconductor thin film structure formed of an insulating substrate and a plurality of polycrystalline layers laminated on the insulating substrate. A plurality of transistors are formed at the surface of the polycrystalline semiconductor thin film structure, each transistor being formed in a region of one of a plurality of crystal grains disseminated on the surface of the polycrystalline layers. A number of crystal grains in each of the polycrystalline layers is gradually reduced from a lower layer to an upper layer.

Electronic apparatus having polycrystalline semiconductor thin film structure

At least one of a semiconductor thin-film for forming a picture display portion and a semiconductor thin-film for forming a peripheral circuit portion, which are accumulated on one common insulative substrate, is constructed with a semiconductor thin-film having a plural number of semiconductor crystalline portions formed to be divided and disposed in a matrix-like, and TFTs are provided in the semiconductor thin-film by bringing those semiconductor single crystal portions into active portions thereof. For that purpose, a crystallization accelerating material is adhered at the position of lattice points of a matrix and is treated with heating process, for forming the single crystal portions disposed in the matrix-like manner, so as to form the TFTs on the surface thereof, thereby completing the thin-film semiconductor integrated circuit device.

Thin-film semiconductor integrated circuit device and picture display device with using thereof and manufacturing method thereof

The present invention provides an apparatus having a semiconductor device including a plurality of transistors formed on respective single crystal silicon regions of enlarged grain size. On a polycrystalline silicon layer, projections at regular intervals are formed by using anisotropic etching and a photomask. The tips of projections are composed of single crystal silicon of a specific crystal orientation selectively left by the anisotropic etching, which is a candidate for nuclei of amorphous silicon to be deposited thereon. By iterating the above process a plurality of times, and by gradually enlarging the pitch, span, size and height of projections, the size of the crystal grains of silicon at the surface may be enlarged to the extent required. Thereby, silicon crystal grains of large grain size with the crystal orientation aligned may be formed at controllable positions.

ELECTRONIC APPARATUS HAVING SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE INCLUDING PLURALITY OF TRANSISTORS FORMED ON A POLYCRYSTALLINE LAYERED STRUCTURE IN WHICH THE NUMBER OF CRYSTAL GRAINS IN EACH POLYCRYSTALLINE LAYER IS GRADUALLY REDUCED FROM LOWER TO UPPER LAYER

Configurations of a light signal communication apparatus and an optical communication system suitable for speeding-up of the transmission of information based on a light signal and an increase in the capacity for the information transmission are disclosed. On the light signal transmitting side, excitation light is supplied to an active medium in accordance with a transmission signal to cause induced emission within the active medium, thereby generating signal light. The excitation light causes spontaneously-emitted light to fall on a semiconductor layer, and a voltage pulse corresponding to transmission information is applied to modulate the refractive index of the semiconductor layer, thereby Bragg-reflecting a specific wavelength component, after which it is sent to the active medium as the excitation light. The Bragg reflection and induced emission incident to it exhibit excellent response to a voltage signal having a pulse width of 1&times;10 seconds or less. It is therefore possible to implement an optical communication system having a transmission rate up to 100 Gb/s with one light signal.

Optical communication equipment and system

A fine-fabrication method of solid surfaces relates to a new surface fabrication method allows a solid-device surface to be fabricated at an atomic scale so as to produce an ultra-fine device or a device for recording information at an ultra-high density. A probe is installed with a tip thereof facing to the surface of a specimen to undergo fabrication. A voltage for forming an electric field is applied between the probe and the specimen. The electric field is large enough to field-evaporate atoms constituting the specimen or the probe; the electric field field-evaporates atoms constituting the specimen, removing them from the surface of the specimen; and as another alternative, the electric field field-evaporates atoms constituting the probe, depositing them on the surface of the specimen. Further, in another surface atom fabrication method, while the surface of a specimen is observed at an atomic scale using a surface observation technique by means of a scanning tunnelling microscope, a pulsative voltage large enough for the field evaporation of atoms described above is applied between the probe and the specimen at any arbitrary desired positions on the surface of the specimen; and the pulsative voltage field-evaporates and, hence, eliminates atoms one by one from the surface of the specimen.

Surface atom fabrication method and apparatus

By i) forming a layered structure of an undoped single crystalline Si layer and single crystalline Si.sub.0.8 Ge.sub.0.2 mixed crystal layer on an n-Si(100) substrate, a second undoped single crystalline Si layer on it, and a p type hydrogenated amorphous Si.sub.1-B C.sub.B layer on it, iii) mounting an n-Si.sub.0.55 Ge.sub.0.40 C.sub.0.05 layer on an n-Si(100) substrate and forming a layered structure of an undoped single crystalline Si.sub.0.55 Ge.sub.0.40 C.sub.0.05 layer and Si.sub.0.8 Ge.sub.0.2 layer, an undoped single crystalline Si.sub.0.55 Ge.sub.0.40 C.sub.0.05 layer, and a p-Si.sub.0.55 Ge.sub.0.40 C.sub.0.05 layer sequentially on it or iv) mounting an n type single crystalline Si layer on an n-Si(100) substrate and forming a layered structure of an undoped single crystalline Si layer and Si.sub.0.8 Ge.sub.0.1 Sn.sub.0.1 layer, an undoped single crystalline Si layer, and a p type single crystalline Si layer sequentially on it, a semiconductor optical device is obtained.

Semiconductor optical device, manufacturing method for the same, and

A semiconductor device comprising a semiconductor crystalline substrate having projections each thereof having an area of 0.01 .mu.m.sup.2 to 4 .mu.m.sup.2 or stripe projections each thereof having a width of 0.01 .mu.m to 1 .mu.m and semiconductor crystalline layers formed on the projections, each of the layers having lattice constants different from those of the semiconductor crystalline substrate preferably by 0.5% or more. The semiconductor device is free of dislocations and thermally stable. The semiconductor device can be fabricated by performing such processes as forming projections on the substrate and forming semiconductor crystalline layers on the projections by molecular beam epitaxy.

Semiconductor projections having layers with different lattice constants

A transistor having a high carrier mobility and suited for a high-speed operation can be formed by utilizing a fact that the carrier mobility in a strained germanium layer is large. A strain control layer is provided beneath the germanium layer to impose a compressive strain on the germanium layer, and the composition of the strain control layer in a predetermined range is used to generate the compressive strain surely.

Growing community of inventors

Kofu, Japan

Kiyokazu Nakagawa