COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

Abstract: Monolithic integration of Si MOSFETs (10) and gallium arsenide MESFETs (100) on a silicon substrate (12) is described herein. Except for contact openings and final metallization, the Si MOSFETs are first fabricated on selected areas of a silicon wafer. CVD or sputtering is employed to cover the wafer with successive layers (14 to 17) of SiO₂ and Si₃N₄ to protect the MOSFET structure during gallium arsenide epitaxy and subsequent MESFET processing. Gallium arsenide layers are then grown by MBE or MOCVD or VPE over the entire wafer. The gallium arsenide grown on the bare silicon is single crystal material while that on the nitride is polycrystalline. The polycrystalline gallium arsenide is etched away and MESFETs (100) are fabricated in the single crystal regions by conventional processes. Next, the contact openings for the Si MOSFETs are etched through the Si₃N₄/SiO₂ layers and final metallization is performed to complete the MOSFET fabrication. In an alternative embodiment, Si MOSFETs and aluminum gallium arsenide double heterostructure LEDs are formed in a similar manner.

Description: Background Art Monolithic integration of compound semiconductor (Group III-V or II-VI) devices and silicon devices on a common substrate has the potential for achieving very substantial improvements in the performance of V ery L arge S cale I ntegrated (VLSI) circuits. In particular, M onolithic integration of a G aAs compound semiconductor device and S ilicon devices on a common substrate (MGS) enhances the VLSI circuit by combining the performance of silicon circuits with gallium arsenide and/or aluminum gallium arsenide optoelectronic components and high speed gallium arsenide and/or aluminum gallium arsenide circuits. For example, the through-put of a silicon VLSI system may be considerably increased by integrating high-speed gallium arsenide input and/or output circuits, signal processing units and/or cache memory devices. As another example, gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide optoelectronic interface units may provide high-data-rate optical links to replace wire interconnects between silicon VLSI subsystems. While there exists a 4% lattice mismatch between gallium arsenide and silicon; device-quality gallium arsenide layers have been grown on silicon substrates by both molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and metal organic chemical vapor deposition. For true MGS integration, however, it is necessary to fabricate both gallium arsenide and silicon devices on the same wafer or substrate. Monolithic integration of GaAs and Si FET devices is know from Technical Digest on GaAs IC Symposium, Monteray, 12-14 November 1985, pages 71-73; and from Technical Digest on International Electron Devices Meeting, Washington, DC, 1-4 December 1985, pages 766-767. Integration of GaP and Si devices on a common Si substrate is also known from DE-A-3 404 875. Disclosure of the Invention The present invention relates, in general, to a method for fabricating compound semiconductor devices of III-V or II-VI material and semiconductor devices of silicon on a common substrate. The III-V material is preferably gallium arsenide or alloys of gallium arsenides, such as aluminum gallium arsenide. The II-VI material may comprise cadmium telluride. For ease in description, it should be understood that references hereafter to gallium arsenide are intended to also encompass aluminum gallium arsenide or other gallium arsenide metal alloys, as well as gallium arsenide itself, unless otherwise indicated. The present invention is a method of fabricating compound semiconductor devices (210) of III-V or II-VI material and semiconductor devices (200) of silicon on a common substrate of a first conductivity type with low resistance interconnections between the compound semiconductor devices and the silicon devices formed in the substrate comprising the steps of: (a) forming Si devices (200) having regions of a second conductivity type opposite to said first conductivity type (34'/30'/32') and wherein one of said regions (32') extends laterally along the planar surface of the substrate; (b) forming a protective layer (16'/17') over the Si devices and the remainder of said substrate surface; (c) forming openings laterally displaced from the Si devices through said protective layer to expose regions of the surface of said substrate, a portion of the perimeter of one of said openings being coextensive with said extended region, the substrate region underlying said opening being heavily doped to form a low resistance region (50) of said second conductivity type extending to the planar surface of the substrate in contact with the extended region; (d) forming a layer (54) of said compound semiconductor on the protective layer and the exposed surface regions, which layer is single crystalline above the exposed surface regions and polycrystalline elsewhere; (e) removing the compound semiconductor polycrystalline layer; (f) forming said compound semiconductor devices (56/58/60/62) having junctions formed of second conductivity type regions on the remaining single crystalline compound semiconductor (54) with the low resistance region (50) contacting said extended region 32' of said Si devices to form said low resistance interconnection in said substrate; and (g) forming ohmic contacts (72, 70, 28') on said devices (200, 210). The foregoing and other features and advantages of the invention will now be described in connection with the drawings. It should be noted that in the embodiments shown herein, GaAs or AlGaAs has been chosen to illustate the process, but as mentioned above, other III-V compounds or alloys, such as InP, etc., may be substituted therefore or II-VI compounds, such as CdTe may be employed in place of the III-V compounds. Brief Description of the Drawings Fig. 1A-D are schematic cross-sectional drawings of the silicon processing for an MGS, not forming part of the present invention, wherein a silicon MOSFET is fabricated along with a gallium arsenide MESFET on a single silicon substrate. Fig. 1A shows the silicon MOSFETs fabricated in selected areas of the silicon substrate and the device is covered with a protective layer of SiO₂/Si₃N₄. Fig. 1B shows the gallium arsenide epitaxy processing step. Fig. 1C shows the gallium arsenide MESFET processing, and Fig. 1D shows the silicon contact formation and metallization process steps. Fig. 2 is a plot of the transistor characteristics (current in milliamps v. voltage with 200 millivolt gate voltage steps between curves) of a gallium arsenide MESFET made in accordance with the invention. Fig. 3 is a plot of the gate Schottky diode characteristics of a gallium arsenide MESFET made in accordance with the invention. Fig. 4 is a plot of the silicon MOSFET characteristics (A) with and (B) without gallium arsenide MESFET processing steps. Fig. 5 is a schematic cross-sectional diagram of a monolithically integrated silicon MOSFET 200 and gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide light emitting diode 210 made in accordance with the invention. Fig. 6 is a drawing of a planar top view of the gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide LED 210 and the surrounding silicon MOSFET 200 of Fig. 5. Fig. 7 is a plot of the silicon MOSFET characteristics of Figs. 5 and 6 (A) with and (B) without gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide LED processing steps. Fig. 8 is a plot of the current vs. voltage characteristics of the MGS LED of Figs. 5 and 6. Fig. 9 is a plot of a light output vs. current characteristics of the MGS LED of Fig. 5. Fig. 10 is a plot of the modulation characteristics of an MGS LED at (A) 20 megahertz and (B) 27 megabits per second. The bottom, middle and top traces are the time wave forms of the gate voltage V g , drain or LED current I, and light output L, respectively. Best Mode of Carrying Out the Invention I. INTEGRATION OF Si MOSFETs and GaAs MESFETs The sequence of processing steps for fabricating MGS Si MOSFETs and GaAs MESFETs on an Si substrate is shown in Figs. 1A-D. This process has previously been published in Technical Digest on International Electron Devices Meeting, Washington, DC, 1-4 December 1985, pages 766-767. Referring to Fig. 1A, the Si MOSFETs 10 are fabricated first, except for contact openings and final metallization, on selected areas of a 1-3 ohms-cm p-type Si single crystal wafer or substrate 12 oriented 3° off the (100) crystalographic plane toward the (111) plane. A standard poly-Si gate process is used for MOSFET fabrication. This poly-Si process consists, in general, of forming a thermal oxide SiO₂ layer 14 over the wafer 12; forming openings through layer 14; forming a thin gate oxide layer 15; depositing a poly-Si layer (not shown) over the entire wafer; etching the poly-Si layer outside the gate area 30; performing ion implantation using poly-Si gate 30 and SiO₂ 14/15 as a mask for ion implantation of drain and source n+ regions 34 and 32, respectively. The gate region 30 is also doped by ion implantation at the same time to form an n+ gate. Chemical vapor deposition is then employed to cover the entire wafer with successive layers of SiO₂ 16 and Si₃N₄ 17 to protect the MOSFET structures during subsequent GaAs epitaxy and subsequent MESFET processing. The Si₃N₄ layer is used because SiO₂ is a poor diffusion barrier for Ga. However, for thin film, low temperature GaAs layers, a single layer of SiO₂ may be adequate. Referring to Fig. 1B, 300 x 10⁻³ mm (300 micron) square openings are etched in the Si₃N₄/SiO₂ cap layers 17/16 and oxide layers 14/15 to expose the bare Si substrate surface in the regions where GaAs devices are to be fabricated. GaAs layers 18 are then grown over the entire wafer, such as by MBE. Preferably, before being loaded into the MBE system, the wafer, as thus far processed, is throughly cleaned and any surface oxide present is etched from the bare Si regions by dipping in HF. The wafer is heated in situ to about 850°C for a short period to desorb any remaining surface oxide. GaAs growth is initiated at a relatively low temperature to promote GaAs nucleation, and the temperature is then raised to about 580°C for the remaining growth. The GaAs 20 grown on the bare surface Si 12 is single-crystal material, while that on the nitride 17 is polycrystalline 21. Transmission electron microscopy shows that the single-crystal GaAs near the GaAs/Si interface has a dislocation density exceeding 10¹⁰ cm⁻² due to the lattice mismatch. As growth continues, however, only a small fraction of the dislocations propagate toward the surface. Material with a dislocation density of 10⁶ - 10⁷ cm⁻² is obtained when the thickness exceeds about 2 x 10⁻³mm (2 microns). Referring to Fig. 1C, the GaAs layers grown for the MESFET structure 100 are a 4 x 10⁻³mm (4 micron) thick nominally undoped buffer layer 20', an n active layer 22 doped with Si to 3 x 10¹⁷ cm⁻³, and an n+ contact layer 24 doped to more than 2 x 10¹⁸ cm⁻³. The polycrystalline GaAs 21 is then etched away (as shown in Fig. 1C),and MESFETs are fabricated in the single-crystal regions by the conventional recessed gate process. The gate metal 27 is A1, and Ge/Au/Ni is used for ohmic contacts 26. Next, (See Fig. 1D) contact openings for the Si MOSFETs 10 are etched in the Si₃N₄/SiO₂ layers 17/16 and oxide layer 15, and metallization 28 to provide ohmic contacts is performed by evaporating Al to complete fabrication of MOSFET 10. Metal interconnections 29 may be similarly formed between the MESFET and MOSFET contacts. An Si MOSFET with an adjacent GaAs MESFET has been fabricated, as above, in which the gate lengths of the Si and GaAs devices are 5 and 1 microns, respectively, and in which the gate width is 40 microns for both devices. The GaAs MESFETs have well behaved characteristics, as shown in the transistor I-V plot of Fig. 2, with transconductance of about 150 mS/mm. The measured source resistance is about 1 ohm-mm giving an intrinsic transconductance of about 175 mS/mm. The output conductance has a fairly low value of about 3.5 mS/mm. The gate Schottky diodes have a breakdown voltage of more than 10 V and negligible leakage current, as shown in Fig. 3, and the breakdown is sharp. These results are comparable to those obtained for state-of-the-art GaAs MESFETs of similar gate length fabricated on single-crystal GaAs substrates. The MGS Si MOSFETs have normal transistor characteristics, as shown in Fig. 4A. The transconductance is about 19 mS/mm for a gate oxide thickness of 80 nm (800 A). Fig. 4B shows the transistor characteristics of control devices fabricated on a separate Si wafer. The characteristics of the devices fabricated with and without GaAs processing steps are seen to be nearly identical. II. INTEGRATION of Si MOSFETs AND GaAs/AlGaAs DOUBLE-HETEROSTRUCTURE LEDs Fig. 5 is a partial schematic diagram of an embodiment of the invention in cross-section. In this embodiment GaAs/AlGaAs double-heterostructure, LEDs 210 are formed on a Si substrate 12' surrounded by a ring-type MOSFET 200. The right side of the ring is not shown in Fig. 5 for simplicity. The sequence of processing steps is as follows. After initial thermal oxidation 14' of a p-type Si wafer 12', openings of 200 x 10⁻³mm (200 microns) x 400 x 10⁻³mm (400 microns) are etched in the SiO₂ 14', and a high dose of arsenic ions is implanted to form n+ islands 50 by converting the surface of the exposed Si wafer 12'. A Si MOSFET 200 is fabricated around each n+ island, except for contact openings and final metallization. The MOSFET drain region 32' is in contact with the edge of n+ island 50. The entire wafer is capped with successive layers of SiO₂ 16' and Si₃N₄ 17', and openings are etched to expose the n+ Si islands 50. It should be noted that the n+ Si islands 50 could be formed during the formation of the GaAs layer. Molecular beam epitaxy is employed to deposit the following series of layers for the LEDs: 3 x 10⁻³mm (3 microns) thick n+ GaAs buffer 54, a 0.5 x 10⁻³mm (0.5 microns) thick n Al 0.3 Ga 0.7 As 56, a 0.4 x 10⁻³mm (0.4 microns) thick p GaAs active 58, 0.5 x 10⁻³mm (0.5 microns) thick Al 0.3 Ga 0.7 As 60, and 0.25 x 10⁻³mm (0.25 microns) thick p+ GaAs cap 62. The growth conditions are similar to those described in the previous embodiment above, except that the AlGaAs growth temperature is about 700°C. The heavily doped n+ Si island 50 forms an internal low resistance interconnect between the drain 32' of the Si MOSFET 200 and the n+ GaAs cathode 54 of LED 210. The polycrystalline GaAs/AlGaAs layers deposited as above on the Si₃N₄/SiO₂ cap are removed by etching. Octagonal mesas for LEDs are formed in the monocrystalline GaAs/AlGaAs islands grown on bare Si by etching down to the n+ GaAs buffer. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is used to deposit SiN x 64 over the entire wafer. Contact openings are etched in the nitride layer 64 for LEDs and in the nitride/oxide layer 64/17'/16' 15' 14' for MOSFETs. Metallization is performed by evaporating A1 28' on the MOSFETs and Ni/Ge/Au 70 and Cr/Au 72, respectively, on the cathode 54 and anode 62 of the LEDs 210. Contact 28' to the MOSFET drain 32' and contact 70 to the LED cathode 54, although not utilized in joint operation of the two devices, are made in order to permit the characteristics of each device to be measured separately. To accommodate these additional contacts, it is necessary to increase the area of the n+ Si layer, thereby substantially increasing the drain/cathode capacitance. Fig. 6 is a top planar view showing a completed GaAs/AlGaAs LED 210 surrounded by a Si MOSFET 200 made as described above. The LED mesa has a diameter of 75 x 10⁻³mm (75 microns), and the unmetallized opening 80 for LED emission has a diameter of 50 x 10⁻³mm (50 microns). The MOSFET has a gate length of 5 x 10⁻³mm (5 microns) and gate width of 1.6 mm. The MGS MOSFETs 200 have normal transistor characteristics. Fig. 7A shows the characteristics of a typical device, which delivers about 120 mA with both gate and drain set at 5 V. Fig. 7B shows the characteristics of a control MOSFET fabricated on a separate Si wafer. The characteristics of the devices fabricated with and without GaAs/AlGaAs growth and processing steps are seen to be almost the same. The MGS LED 210 has a breakdown voltage of about 16 V with negligible leakage current, as shown in Fig. 8. This is the same as the value obtained for control devices fabricated on a GaAs substrate. At low forward bias voltages, both the MGS and control LEDs have an ideality factor close to 2, indicating that recombination is the dominant mechanism of current flow. However, at a given bias voltage, the current is about 50 times higher for the MGS devices than for the control devices. This implies that the minority carrier lifetime is much shorter for the MGS GaAs/AlGaAs layers than for the control layers. Fig. 9 shows the light output vs DC current characteristic for MGS LED 210. A microscope lens with numerical aperture of 0.65 was used to focus the light on a 1-cm-diameter p-i-n photodiode detector. The characteristic is slightly sublinear because of heating. At 100 mA DC current, the output is about 6.5 uW, which is 10-15% of the output from control devices. The MGS LEDs have a non-uniform near-field pattern with many dark spots, while the pattern for the control LEDs is uniform. The peak of the MGS LED spectrum is at 875 nm, about 5 nm greater than that for the control devices. The shift can be attributed to tensile stress in the MGS GaAs/AlGaAs layers. To characterize the heterojunction between the n+ Si and n+ GaAs layers, an I-V curve was measured for current flow between the MOSFET drain and LED cathode contacts 28′ and 70. The characteristic was ohmic, showing that there is no barrier to the heterojunction. The measured resistance was 3 ohms. This value represents an upper limit on the heterojunction resistance, since it includes the resistance of the drain and cathode contacts. With the MGS LED anode 62 biased at 5 V, the light output was modulated by applying a stream of voltage pulses to the MOSFET gate 30′. The light was focused with the microscope lens on a 0.5-mm-diameter avalanche photodiode detector. Fig. 10A shows the gate voltage, LED current, and light output waveforms obtained when the voltage pulses were applied at a repetition rate of 20 MHz. The current waveform is distorted with respect to the voltage waveform in a manner characteristic of charging and discharging a capacitance, but the light output closely follows the current. These observations show that the output modulation is limited not by the speed of the LED but by the rate at which the MOSFET charges and discharges the drain/cathode capacitance, which is estimated to be about 200 pF. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that modulation rates exceeding 100 MHz were obtained when the LED was driven directly with a pulse generator. Fig. 10B shows the waveforms obtained when a bit pattern was applied to the gate at a modulation rate of 27 Mbps. Although there is some pattern effect, each bit is clearly resolved. III. SUMMARY The monolithic integration of Si MOSFETs with GaAS MESFETs and also with GaAs/AlGaAs double-heterostructure LEDS, has been described. The operating characteristics of the MGS MOSFETs and MESFETs are comparable to those of similar devices fabricated on separate Si and GaAs substates. LED modulation rates up to 27 Mbps have been accomplished by applying a stream of voltage pulses to the MOSFET gate. It should be possible to achieve much higher modulation rates by scaling down the device dimensions to reduce parasitic capacitance. Equivalents While the above described embodiments of the invention are preferred, other configurations will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. For example, the term Si substrate or wafer is intended to include an SOS ( S ilicon on S apphire) substrate, or a S ilicon o n I nsulator (Si on SiO₂ on Si) substrate. In addition to LEDs, other optoelectronic devices may be fabricated on the exposed Si surface, such as lasers or light detectors. Other type transistors, such as bipolar or modulation doped FETs (MODFETs) may be substituted for the MESFETs or the Si MOSFETs.

Claims: A method of fabricating compound semiconductor devices (210) of III-V or II-VI material and semiconductor devices (200) of silicon on a common substrate of a first conductivity type with low resistance interconnections between the compound semiconductor devices and the silicon devices formed in the substrate comprising the steps of: (a) forming Si devices (200) having regions of a second conductivity type opposite to said first conductivity type (34'/30'/32') and wherein one of said regions (32') extends laterally along the planar surface of the substrate; (b) forming a protective layer (16'/17') over the Si devices and the remainder of said substrate surface; (c) forming openings laterally displaced from the Si devices through said protective layer to expose regions of the surface of said substrate, a portion of the perimeter of one of said openings being coextensive with said extended region, the substrate region underlying said opening being heavily doped to form a low resistance region (50) of said second conductivity type extending to the planar surface of the substrate in contact with the extended region; (d) forming a layer (54) of said compound semiconductor on the protective layer and the exposed surface regions, which layer is single crystalline above the exposed surface regions and polycrystalline elsewhere; (e) removing the compound semiconductor polycrystalline layer; (f) forming said compound semiconductor devices (56/58/60/62) having junctions formed of second conductivity type regions on the remaining single crystalline compound semiconductor (54) with the low resistance region (50) contacting said extended region 32' of said Si devices to form said low resistance interconnection in said substrate; and (g) forming ohmic contacts (72, 70, 28') on said devices (200, 210). A method as claimed in claim 1, characterised in that the low resistance region (50) is formed before the protective layer (16'/17') is formed. A method as claimed in claim 1, characterised in that the low resistance region is formed during the formation of the compound semiconductor layer. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the substrate comprises a single crystal: silicon, or a silicon on sapphire, or a silicon-on-insulator substrate. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the protective layer comprises a layer of SiO₂ (16'). A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the protective layer comprises layers of SiO₂ (16') and Si₃N₄ (17'). A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the compound semiconductor is GaAs or an alloy thereof. A method as claimed in claim 7, characterised in that the gallium arsenide semiconductor device is an optoelectronic device (210). A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the Si devices are part of an Si circuit. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the compound semiconductor devices are transistors from the class comprising MESFETs, bipolar transistors, or modulation doped FETs. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the compound semiconductor devices are optoelectronic devices from the class comprising LED, lasers and light detectors. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the compound semiconductor devices are part of a circuit consisting of transistors and optoelectronic devices. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the ohmic contacts for said Si devices and compound semiconductor devices is formed after the compound semiconductor device is formed and the ohmic contacts for the Si devices is formed through openings made in said protective layer.

Inventors: CHOI, HONG KYUN, TSAUR, BOR-YEU
Applicants: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Application year: 1987
Main classification: H01L21
IPC codes: H01L33, H01L27, H01L21