Yield Improvement for SiC Crystal Growth by Optimizing Temperature Measurement and Control

Semiconductor Review | Friday, September 27, 2024

New Innovation for SiC PVT Systems

CVD Equipment Corporation introduces Dynamic Hotzone Temperature Control™ to address SiC crystal growth yield loss attributed to temperature related dependency.

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Temperature variation is considered to be a main contributor to yield loss during crystal growth. There are several variables that can impact temperature measurement including misalignment from manual hotzone assembly, misalignment from manual loading, and misalignment from hotzone degradation. This misalignment can cause variations in temperature as much as 40 °C, having an adverse impact on physical vapor transport growth repeatability within run, run-to-run, and system-to-system, and hence, crystal boule yield. Temperature measurement accuracy is a critical factor for SiC yield.

DHTC™ is a patent pending innovative product solution that addresses these temperature dependent contributors to improve yield. The DHTC™ subsystem is engineered for temperature measurement accuracy and dynamic tracking for SiC physical vapor transport (PVT) systems. DHTC™ combines video processing software and mechanical hardware for tracking the center of rotation, position of crucible viewport, and pyrometer alignment to determine, record, and compensate for misalignment of the hotzone for optimized temperature control. Our solution enables highly repeatable temperature measurements and dynamically compensates for misalignment, allowing crystal growth in temperature control mode.

The Company launched DHTC™ in Q3 2024, for 150 mm and 200 mm PVT systems. This technology option is offered on all of CVDE’s Physical Vapor Transport systems. DHTC™ can also be offered on captive in-house manufactured PVT systems as well, for improved yield, within run, run-to-run, system-to-system repeatability and optimized temperature measurement and control.

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