These processes are used for a wide variety of applications in semiconductor manufacturing including dopant activation, thermal oxidation, metal reflow and chemical vapor deposition.
[1] One of the key challenges in rapid thermal processing is accurate measurement and control of the wafer temperature.
Monitoring the ambient with a thermocouple has only recently become feasible, in that the high temperature ramp rates prevent the wafer from coming to thermal equilibrium with the process chamber.
RTP-like processing has found applications in another rapidly growing field: solar cell fabrication.
RTP-like processing, in which the semiconductor sample is heated by absorbing optical radiation, has come to be used for many solar cell fabrication steps, including phosphorus diffusion for N/P junction formation and impurity gettering, hydrogen diffusion for impurity and defect passivation, and formation of screen-printed contacts using Ag-ink for the front and Al-ink for back contacts, respectively.