Anelva Corporation

Tokyo Electron Limited

Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.

Hitachi-kokusai Electric Inc.

Ulvac, Inc.

Canon Anelva Corporation

Kanto Denka Kogyo Co., Ltd.

Other

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Canon Anelva Corproation

Yoichiro Numasawa

Nobuyuki Takahashi

Shinya Hasegawa

Shigeru Mizuno

Yoshimi Watabe

Masahito Ishihara

Yukinobu Murao

Shunpei Yamazaki

Masahiko Kobayashi

Nobuyoshi Koshida

Tsutomu Tsukada

Akira Kumagai

Yoshikazu Hiura

Yukito Nakagawa

Manabu Tagami

Takanori Yoshimura

Kiyoshi Nashimoto

Yasushi Maeda

A photoelectric conversion device with low resistance loss and high conversion efficiency is provided. The photoelectric conversion device includes a first silicon semiconductor layer and a second silicon semiconductor layer between a pair of electrodes. The first silicon semiconductor layer is provided over one surface of a crystalline silicon substrate having one conductivity type and has a conductivity type opposite to that of the crystalline silicon substrate, and the second silicon semiconductor layer is provided on the other surface of the crystalline silicon substrate and has a conductivity type which is the same as that of the crystalline silicon substrate. Further, the first silicon semiconductor layer and the second silicon semiconductor layer each have a carrier concentration varying in the film thickness direction.

Photoelectric conversion device

A plasma treatment apparatus has a reaction vessel () provided with a top electrode () and a bottom electrode (), and the first electrode is supplied with a VHF band high frequency power from a VHF band high frequency power source (), while the bottom electrode on which a substrate () is loaded and is moved by a vertical movement mechanism. The plasma treatment system has a controller () which, at the time of a cleaning process after forming a film on the substrate (), controls a vertical movement mechanism to move the bottom electrode to narrow the gap between the top electrode and bottom electrode and form a narrow space and starts cleaning by a predetermined high density plasma in that narrow space. In the cleaning process, step cleaning is performed. Due to this, the efficiency of utilization of the cleaning gas is increased, the amount of exhaust gas is cut, and the cleaning speed is raised. Further, the amount of the process gas used is cut and the process cost is reduced.

Plasma treatment system and cleaning method of the same

This invention provides a substrate structure capable of controlling the threshold voltage of a MOS transistor independently of the substrate concentration and easily suppressing a short channel effect caused by reducing the channel length. A first nanosilicon film formed from nanosilicon grains having the same grain size is formed on a silicon oxide film on the surface of a silicon substrate. A silicon nitride film is formed on the first nanosilicon film. Then, a second nanosilicon film having an average grain size different from that of the first nanosilicon film is formed. A semiconductor circuit device is formed on a thus manufactured nanosilicon semiconductor substrate.

Nanosilicon semiconductor substrate manufacturing method and semiconductor circuit device using nanosilicon semiconductor substrate manufactured by the method

An oxygen- or nitrogen-terminated silicon nanocrystalline structure is formed on a silicon substrate by forming a silicon film of fine silicon crystals and amorphous silicon on a substrate, and oxidizing or nitriding the formed silicon film with ions and radicals formed from an oxidizing gas or a nitriding gas. The oxidizing or nitriding step comprises substeps of disposing the substrate provided with the silicon film in an oxidizing or nitriding gas atmosphere within a plasma treatment chamber, and then plasma-oxiziding or plasma-nitriding the substrate provided with the silicon film by applying a high frequency electric field to the oxidizing or nitriding gas atmosphere. The method allows the particle diameter of the oxygen- or nitrogen-terminated silicon nanocrystals to be regulated to an accuracy of 1 to 2 nm, the density thereof per unit area to be increased, and the silicon nanocrystalline structure to be produced easily and inexpensively.

Method of forming an oxygen- or nitrogen-terminated silicon nanocrystalline structure and an oxygen- or nitrogen-terminated silicon nanocrystalline structure formed by the method

A forming method and a forming apparatus of nanocrystalline silicon structure makes it possible to prepare a nanocrystalline silicon structure at a low temperature to have densely packed silicon crystal grains which are stably terminated and to effectively control the grain size in nanometer scale. A forming method and a forming apparatus of nanocrystalline silicon structure with oxide or nitride termination, carry out a first step of treating a surface of a substrate with hydrogen radical; a second step of depositing silicon crystals having a grain size of 10 nm or less by the thermal reaction of a silicon-containing gas; and a third step of terminating the surface of the silicon crystal with oxygen or nitrogen by using one of oxygen gas, oxygen radical and nitrogen radical.

Forming method and a forming apparatus of nanocrystalline silicon structure

A plasma processing system is comprised of a reaction vessel in which are provided a parallel high frequency electrode and ground electrode. The ground electrode is fixed at a ground potential portion, that is, a flange, by a conductive support column. A connection portion from the ground electrode to the ground potential portion, for example, the portions other than the surface of the ground electrode and the surface of the support column etc. are covered by an insulator serving as a high frequency power propagator while the surface of the insulator is covered completely by a conductive member except at the portion for introducing the high frequency power. In this plasma processing system, it is possible to reliably prevent undesirable discharge from occurring at the rear surface of the ground electrode when processing a substrate mounted on the ground electrode to deposit a film using a high frequency power in the VHF band.

Plasma processing system

A sputtering device includes a sputter chamber equipped with a vacuum pump system; a metal target provided inside the sputter chamber; a sputtering power source for producing a sputter discharge and sputtering the target to create sputter particles; a substrate holder for holding a substrate in the position where the sputter particles land; and a gas introduction device for introducing into the sputter chamber a reactive gas that reacts with the sputter particles released from the target, and produces a compound that has a lower sticking characteristic to a special region of the substrate than do the sputter particles alone, wherein the compound can be dissociated in another region of the substrate. A method of sputtering includes the steps of producing a sputter discharge with a sputtering power source for sputtering a metal target in a sputter chamber to create sputter particles; holding a substrate in a position where the sputter particles land; introducing into the sputter chamber a reactive gas that reacts with the sputter particles released from the target to produce a compound that has a lower sticking characteristic to a special region of the substrate than do the sputter particles alone; and dissociating the compound in another region of the substrate.

Sputter device

A substrate processing device includes a reactor equipped with a substrate holder and a gas feed electrode facing the substrate holder, a pump mechanism for pumping out an interior of the reactor, a reaction gas feed mechanism for introducing a reaction gas through the gas feed electrode into the interior of said reactor, a high frequency power source for applying a high frequency power to said gas feed electrode, a connecting port formed in a sidewall of said reactor, the pump mechanism is connected to the connecting port formed in the sidewall of the reactor, and a space between the gas feed electrode and the substrate holder is set so that a conductance between the gas feed electrode and the substrate holder is lower than a conductance between the sidewall of the reactor and the gas feed electrode.

Substrate processing apparatus

A method of processing a substrate has the following processes. After depositing a thin film onto a substrate by a CVD method, the front surface of the substrate is brought close to a gas supply surface of a gas supply mechanism to have a desired interval without making contact between the front surface and the gas supply surface. Afterwards, an etching gas is supplied into a back space of the substrate to generate plasma there, and further a purge gas is also supplied into a space between the gas supply surface and the substrate so that the purge gas flows into the back space through a peripheral-edge region of the substrate. This purge gas prevents radicals included in the plasma from diffusing into the space between the gas supply surface and the substrate.

Method of processing a substrate and apparatus for the method

A plasma processing apparatus is furnished with a reactor which is furnished with a susceptor 12, a reaction gas delivery mechanism which delivers reaction gas to the inside of the reactor, a pumping mechanism 24 which pumps out an interior of the reactor, and a plasma-generating mechanism. The reactor is made of metal, the plasma-generating mechanism includes an at least single-winding coil 16 which produces an induced electric field, and the coil is established within the reactor and surrounding the plasma-generating space in a state surrounded by dielectrics parts 15 and 17.

Plasma processing apparatus

A method of depositing a thin film on a substrate by plasma-enhanced CVD is provided. The method includes introducing H.sub.2 or H.sub.2 and N.sub.2 into a plasma-enhanced CVD reactor; generating a plasma in the reactor; introducing a reaction gas comprising TiCl.sub.4, silane, and either H.sub.2 or H.sub.2 and N.sub.2 into the reactor; and depositing a Ti film or a TiN film containing Si on a substrate in the reactor.

Growing community of inventors

Machida, Japan

Yoichiro Numasawa