Globalwafers Co., Ltd.

Memc Electronic Materials, Inc.

Memc Singapore Pte. Ltd.

Corner Star Limited

Sunedison Semiconductor Limited

Memc Singapore Pte. Ltd. (uen200614794d)

Corner Start Limited

Richard Joseph Phillips

William L Luter

Salvador Zepeda

Carissima Marie Hudson

Steven Lawrence Kimbel

John D Holder

Robert Wendell Standley

JaeWoo Ryu

HyungMin Lee

Nan Zhang

Yu-Chiao Wu

Patrick Fredrick Boegemann, Iii

Harold W Korb

Hariprasad Sreedharamurthy

Stephan Haringer

Soubir Basak

Steven Jack Keltner

James Dean Eoff

Gang Shi

Aditya Janardan Deshpande

Jeffrey Louis Libbert

Gaurab Samanta

Mohsen Banan

Milind S Kulkarni

Jae-Woo Ryu

Parthiv Daggolu

Luciano Mule'Stagno

JunHwan Ji

WooJin Yoon

Eric Michael Gitlin

Christopher Vaughn Luers

YoungJung Lee

Shailendra B Rathod

Stephen J Brunkhorst

Marco Zardoni

Larry E Drafall

Kirk D McCallum

Yu-Chaio Wu

Jaewoo Ryu

William Lynn Luter

Woojin Yoon

Junhwan Ji

Youngjung Lee

Hyungmin Lee

Patrick Fredrick Iii Boegemann

John Davis Holder

A method for producing a single crystal silicon ingot includes adding polycrystalline silicon to a crucible disposed within a chamber defined by a housing of an ingot puller apparatus, maintaining the chamber at a first pressure, heating the chamber using radiant heat to melt the polycrystalline silicon and form a silicon melt in the crucible, pulling a single crystal silicon ingot from the silicon melt, channeling a liquid dopant at a second pressure greater than the first pressure into a feed tube positioned in the chamber, vaporizing the liquid dopant into a vaporized dopant by flash evaporation at the first pressure within the feed tube, and directing the vaporized dopant from the feed tube toward a surface of the silicon melt to cause the vaporized dopant to enter the silicon melt as a dopant while pulling the single crystal silicon ingot from the silicon melt.

Systems and methods for producing a single crystal silicon ingot using a vaporized dopant

Methods for producing a single crystal silicon ingot are disclosed. The ingot is doped with boron using solid-phase boric acid as the source of boron. Boric acid may be used to counter-dope the ingot during ingot growth. Ingot puller apparatus that use a solid-phase dopant are also disclosed. The solid-phase dopant may be disposed in a receptacle that is moved closer to the surface of the melt or a vaporization unit may be used to produce a dopant gas from the solid-phase dopant.

Methods for producing a single crystal silicon ingot using boric acid as a dopant

Methods for producing single crystal silicon ingots in which an array of quartz particles are added to the crucible assembly before ingot growth are disclosed. The array may be disposed in the outer melt zone of the crucible assembly as in a continuous Czochralski (CCz) process. The array may be made of quartz particles that are interconnected by linking members.

Use of arrays of quartz particles during single crystal silicon ingot production

Ingot puller apparatus that use a solid-phase dopant

Methods for forming a single crystal silicon ingot with reduced crucible erosion are disclosed. Solid-phase quartz is added to the melt to reduce erosion at the crucible-melt surface interface. The quartz may be synthetic quartz such as synthetic quartz rods. The quartz may be disposed near the crucible-melt surface interface. Quartz dissolves and suppresses the amount of quartz that dissolves from the crucible at the crucible-melt surface interface.

Methods for forming a single crystal silicon ingot with reduced crucible erosion

Methods for forming a unitized crucible assembly for holding a melt of silicon for forming a silicon ingot are disclosed. In some embodiments, the methods involve a porous crucible mold having a channel network with a bottom channel, an outer sidewall channel that extends from the bottom channel, and a central weir channel that extends from the bottom channel. A slip slurry may be added to the channel network and the liquid carrier of the slip slurry may be drawn into the mold. The resulting green body may be sintered to form the crucible assembly.

Methods for forming a unitized crucible assembly

Crucible molds

Methods for forming single crystal silicon ingots with improved resistivity control and, in particular, methods that involve gallium or indium doping are disclosed. In some embodiments, the ingots are characterized by a relatively high resistivity.

Methods for forming single crystal silicon ingots with improved resistivity control

A method for producing a silicon ingot by the horizontal magnetic field Czochralski method includes rotating a crucible containing a silicon melt, applying a horizontal magnetic field to the crucible, contacting the silicon melt with a seed crystal, and withdrawing the seed crystal from the silicon melt while rotating the crucible to form a silicon ingot. The crucible has a wettable surface with a cristobalite layer formed thereon.

Systems and methods for production of silicon using a horizontal magnetic field

A method for doping a single crystal silicon ingot pulled includes heating a vaporization cup. The method also includes maintaining a pressure of an interior of the housing at a first pressure. The method further includes injecting liquid dopant into the dopant injection tube and the vaporization cup. A pressure of the liquid dopant is maintained at a second pressure greater than the first pressure prior to injection into the dopant injection tube and the vaporization cup. The method also includes vaporizing the liquid dopant into vaporized dopant within the housing. The liquid dopant is vaporized by flash evaporation by heating the liquid dopant with the vaporization cup and reducing the pressure of the liquid dopant from the second pressure to the first pressure by injecting the liquid dopant into the housing. The method further includes channeling the vaporized dopant into the housing using the dopant injection tube.

Methods for producing a single crystal silicon ingot using a vaporized dopant

An ingot puller apparatus for producing a doped single crystal silicon ingot includes a housing defining a chamber, a crucible disposed within the chamber, and a dopant injector extending into the housing. The dopant injector includes a delivery module attached to and extending through the housing into the chamber. The delivery module includes a dopant injection tube positioned within the chamber and a vaporization cup positioned within the dopant injection tube and the chamber. The second valve selectively channels the liquid dopant into the vaporization cup and the vaporization cup vaporizes the liquid dopant into a vaporized dopant.

Systems for producing a single crystal silicon ingot using a vaporized dopant

Methods for forming single crystal silicon ingots with improved resistivity control are disclosed. The methods involve growth of a sample rod. The sample rod may have a diameter less than the diameter of the product ingot. The sample rod is cropped to form a center slab. The resistivity of the center slab may be measured directly such as by a four-point probe. The sample rod or optionally the center slab may be annealed in a thermal donor kill cycle prior to measuring the resistivity, and the annealed rod or slab is irradiated with light in order to enhance the relaxation rate and enable more rapid resistivity measurement.

Resistivity stabilization measurement of fat neck slabs for high resistivity and ultra-high resistivity single crystal silicon ingot growth

Methods for producing a single crystal silicon ingot using boric acid as a dopant and ingot puller apparatus that use a solid-phase dopant

Growing community of inventors

St. Peters, MO, United States of America

Richard Joseph Phillips