Patent ID: 8058173

Claim:
A method for reducing the surface roughness of a semiconductor wafer having a front surface and a back surface, the method comprising: rough polishing the front surface and back surface of the wafer, wherein the polishing step does not reduce the roughness of the front surface and back surface of the wafer to below about 1.5 A as measured with scan sizes of about 1 Î¼m Ã— about 1 Î¼m to about 100Î¼m Ã— about 100Î¼m; and thermally annealing the rough polished wafer at a temperature of at least about 1050Â° C. for a period of at least about 5 minutes in an atmosphere comprising an inert gas, hydrogen or a mixture thereof, wherein the wafer is not finish polished after the rough polishing step.