Chapter 1 Ion Implantation into Semiconductors: Historical Perspectives

Publisher Summary This chapter introduces ion implantation into semiconductors with the aim of tracing the historical perspectives and demonstrating the impact of ion implantation on the fabrication of integrated circuits (ICs) in modern microelectronics. The importance of the ion implantation step in the technologic processes for ICs is emphasized and illustrated by various examples dealing with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies and bipolar device fabrication. In the beginning of ion implantation it was not clear, despite Shockley's patent, that semiconductors would become the main application of ion implantation. It is remarkable, however, that among the first experiments with semiconductors, III-V compounds and silicon carbide (Sic) found interest. In 1952, Oh1 implanted silicon point-contact diodes with various ions and found improvement in the reverse current-voltage curve. Hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, and argon ions were used. The improvement was probably due to damage and not to chemical doping. Later, Cussins (1955) implanted germanium with a wide variety of ions, including boron. He annealed the samples for the first time but the achieved p-type conductivity disappeared. Since about 1965, an increasing number of investigations were performed and it is impractical to list all these experiments in the chapter.