Process for making silicon wafers with stabilized oxygen precipitate nucleation centers

摘要

A process for imparting controlled oxygen precipitation behavior to a single crystal silicon wafer. Specifically, prior to formation of the oxygen precipitates, the wafer bulk comprises dopant stabilized oxygen precipitate nucleation centers. The dopant is selected from a group consisting of nitrogen and carbon, and the concentration of the dopant is sufficient to allow the oxygen precipitate nucleation centers to withstand thermal processing, such as an epitaxial deposition process, while maintaining the ability to dissolve any grown-in nucleation centers.