Method for prediction of dislocation generation in silicon substrates of semiconductor devices

In semiconductor devices, the stresses in the silicon substrate sometimes produces dislocations during hightemperature fabricating processes. Although most of the dislocations are generated at stress singularity fields, dislocation generation has been discussed without paying attention to stress-singularity matters. This paper shows that dislocation generation can be predicted considering stress singularity problem. In the experiments discussed, silicon substrates with stressed thin film bands, at whose edges the stress singularity fields were formed, were used as specimens. The strength of the singularities was controlled by changing the bandwidth. Data concerning whether or not dislocations appeared was compared with the values of the singularity parameter. This comparison was performed for two structures of thin films and at three temperatures, and the results show that the singularity parameter can be used to predict the generation of dislocations.