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PDS Products
Planar Diffusion Sources
Saint-Gobain's Boron Nitride group is the leading supplier of solid planar diffusion sources (PDS) to the semiconductor industry, used for doping silicon wafers. In fact, PDS® Products are used by more than 150 semiconductor device manufacturers in 17 countries.
PDS® Products are preferred for use in applications requiring a high concentration of dopant, to dope large diameter silicon, particularly 150mm diameter, and in high volume production. PDS Products allow semiconductor fabricators to replace hazardous chemical dopants such as boron trichloride, boron tribromide, diborane, phosphorus oxychloride, and phosphine.
PDS® Product Types
N-type Phosphorous PDS® Product Sources
Phosphorus solid N-Type PDS Product source materials incorporate a unique manufacturing technology, combining phosphorus dopant material and an inert silicon carbide substrate. The resulting sources offer superior doping characteristics across a wide temperature range.
P-type BN PDS® Product Sources
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PDS® Product Features
- Superior sheet resistance uniformity - particularly on large diameter silicon, higher yields
- Excellent control of doping parameters
- Safest sources available - eliminate hazards of gas and liquid systems
- Reduced maintenance - dopant glass transfers directly to the silicon, virtually no downtime for maintenance
- Increased load capacity - higher throughput, up to 150 silicon wafers per run
- Cost-effective - no additional expense to convert existing gas equipment, lower total processing costs
Compared to gas and liquid dopant systems (i.e. BBr3, BCI3, B2H6, PH3, and POCI3), PDS® Products give improved uniformity, particularly at larger diameters. The depletion effect, typical of gas and liquid systems, is eliminated as the dopant source is in close proximity to each silicon wafer -- an important consideration with large loads. Additionally, PDS Products are absolutely safe, posing zero hazard to people and equipment.
A further advantage unique to Boron Nitride grade PDS Products is their ability to use hydrogen injection, a system designed to reduce or eliminate defects at the silicon wafer surface.
Phosphorous grade PDS Products have their own unique advantage. You are able to achieve higher surface concentrations of electrically active phosphorous than with gas or liquid doping systems.
PDS Products may not be the answer for every semiconductor application; shallow junction, digital microprocessor and memory devices are not a good fit with our products. If your company is making power devices or large geometry integrated circuits though, it would be well worth your time to talk to us.
Certified PDS® Product Process
For new and existing users of PDS® Products, we offer the benefits of process certification, including access to our full range of technical and analytical support services for solving process related problems.
During the 30 years since Carborundum first introduced PDS Products, we have tested sources under a variety of process conditions and formulated recommendations we believe to be the best for a given set of circumstances. Without background in these specific conditions, we now certify processes that follow our recommendations. When your process is certified, we will focus the combined resources of our clean room, analytical equipment, as well as our access to research centers in Northboro, Massachusetts and Le Pontet, France to investigate your problems.
At the same time, some of our customers have developed unusual processes that work well for them, but do not follow our recommendations. For them, we will continue to provide assistance from our Applications Engineering staff, however, detailed process characterization and analytical testing will not be available.