Definition

•Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth.

•Itis a method of depositing a single crystalline film
(new crystalline layers) on a single-crystalline
substrate. The newly deposited film is called
epitaxial film or epitaxial layer.

•The term epitaxy comes from the Greek roots. Epi

means “above” and taxis means “deposition in
ordered manner”.
 Epitaxial Growth
•For epitaxial growth, the new layer will be
crystalline which takes on a lattice structure and
orientation same as those of the substrate.

•The substrate acts as a seed crystal, the

newly deposited film
 Applications of Epitaxial Growth
Epitaxy is the only affordable method of high quality
crystal growth for many semiconductor materials. 
• For Semiconductor fabrication
One of the main commercial applications of epitaxial growth
is in the semiconductor industry, where semiconductor films
are grown epitaxially on semiconductor substrate wafers.
• For High quality crystal growth
For crystal growth of silicon –germanium, gallium-nitride. It
is particularly important for compound semiconductors such
as Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)
• For Silicon based manufacturing process
For manufacturing Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJTs) and
modern Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS)
• For growing layers of pre-doped silicon
In pacemakers, vending machine
• Nanotechnology
It is considered one of the fundamental tools for the
 Types of Epitaxial films
Epitaxial films can be classified into two broad
categories:
Homoepitaxy
-The film and the substrate are the same material.
-Epitaxially grown layers are purer than the
substrate and ca be doped independently of it.
--This method is used to fabricate layers having
different doping levels
Pseudo-homoepitaxy
Epi film and substrate are of same material but
doping in epi layer can be different from that of
substrate (doped Si/undoped Si)
 Types of Epitaxial films
Heteroepitaxy-
--Film and substrate are of different materials
Examples include silicon on sapphire, gallium nitride (
GaN) on sapphire, aluminium
gallium indium phosphide (AlGaInP) on 
gallium arsenide (GaAs) or diamond or iridium, and 
graphene on hexagonal boron nitride (hBN)
Pseudo heteroepitaxy -
-Chemical commonality between film and substrate
 DOPING

 An epitaxial layer can be doped during

deposition by adding impurities to the source
gas, such as arsine, phosphine, or diborane.
 METHODS
 Epitaxial silicon is usually grown using vapor-
phase epitaxy (VPE).
 Molecular Beam  and liquid-phase epitaxy (MBE
and LPE) are also used, mainly for 
compound semiconductors.
 Solid-phase epitaxy is used primarily for
crystal-damage healing.
 Vapour Phase Epitaxy
• Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a thin film deposition
technique that is based on the sequential use of a gas phase
chemical process
• The majority of ALD reactions use two chemicals, typically called
precursors
• These precursors react with the surface of a material one at a time
sequentially
• Due to the repeated exposure to separate precursors, a thin film is
slowly deposited.
 Vapour Phase Epitaxy: Example
 Silicon is most commonly deposited by doping with 
silicon tetrachloride and hydrogen at approximately 1200 to
1250 °C
SiCl4(g) + 2H2(g) ↔ Si(s) + 4HCl(g)

The growth rate depends strongly upon the proportion of the

two source gases.
Growth rates above 2 micrometres per minute produce
polycrystalline silicon
Negative growth rates (etching) may occur if too much 
hydrogen chloride byproduct is present.
Silicon VPE may also use silane, dichlorosilane, and 
trichlorosilane source gases.
 Liquid Phase Epitaxy

• Liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) is a method to grow

semiconductor crystal layers from the melt on solid
substrates
• This happens at temperatures well below the melting
point of the deposited semiconductor
• The semiconductor is dissolved in the melt of another
material.
• It has High growth rates, typically faster than in VPE or
MBE
 Liquid Phase Epitaxy: Example
 The most used substrate is indium phosphide (InP). Other
substrates like glass or ceramic can be applied for special
applications.
 Centrifugal liquid-phase epitaxy is used commercially to
make thin layers of silicon, germanium, and 
gallium arsenide.
 Centrifugally formed film growth is a process used to form
thin layers of materials by using a centrifuge.
 The process has been used to create silicon for thin-film
solar cells
 Molecular Beam Epitaxy
• To make an interesting new crystal using MBE, a base
material called a substrate is used which could be a
familiar semiconductor material such as silicon,
germanium, or gallium arsenide
• First, the substrate is heated, typically to some
hundreds of degrees (for example, 500–600°C or
about 900–1100°F in the case of gallium arsenide). So,
an evaporated beam of particles is produced.
• Then beams of atoms or molecules are fired (heated up so
they're in gas form) at the substrate from the guns called
‘effusion cells’.
 Molecular Beam Epitaxy

• These molecules travel through a very high vacuum

 (10−8 Pa; practically free space) to the substrate.
• The gaseous elements then condense on the wafer
where they may react with each other to form a layer
•
• They build up very slowly and systematically in ultra-thin
layers, so the complex, single crystal grows one atomic
layer at a time
• That's why MBE is an example of thin-film deposition
 Advantages and
Disadvantages ofMBE
Advantages:
It's particularly good for making high-quality (low-defect, highly uniform)
semiconductor crystals from compounds or from a number of different
elements, instead of from a single element
It also allows extremely thin films to be fabricated in a very precise, carefully
controlled way
Disadvantages:
It's a slow and laborious method (crystal growth rate is typically a few microns
per hour), which means it's more suited for scientific research laboratories
than high-volume production, and the equipment involved is complex and
very expensive
Semiconductor device
fabrication
 Semiconductor device fabrication
 It is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices,
typically the metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices used in
the integrated circuit (IC) chips that are present in
everyday electrical and electronic devices.
 It is a multiple-step sequence where electronic circuits are
gradually created on a wafer made of
pure semiconductor material. 
 Silicon is almost always used, but various compound
semiconductors are used for specialized applications.
 The entire manufacturing process, from start to packaged chips
ready for shipment, takes six to eight weeks and is performed in
highly specialized semiconductor fabrication plants.
 IC Fabrication
An integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC,
a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic
circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip")
of semiconductor material that is normally silicon. The
integration of large numbers of tiny MOS transistors
 into a small chip results in circuits that are orders of
magnitude smaller, faster, and less expensive
 IC Fabrication Steps
The fabrication of integrated circuits consists basically of the following process steps:
1. Wafer production:
The first step is wafer production. The wafer is a round slice of
semiconductor material such as silicon. It is the base or substrate for
entire chip.
 Purification of polycrystalline silicon from the sand.
 Heating it to produce molten liquid.
 The liquid is cooled down to form single crystal.
 A thin round wafer of silicon is cut using wafer slicer having
thickness about 0.01-0.025”.
e
 IC FABRICATION STEPS
2. Masking:
Second step is masking, to protect some area of wafer when working on another area.
 Photolithographic process is used. The design of each circuit layer on the IC
chip is determined by a specific geometric pattern. Photolithography uses Ultra
Violet light radiation to imprint this pattern from photomask to the surface of
the silicon wafer

3. Lithography:
•Lithography is used to transfer a pattern from a photomask to the surface of
the wafer.

4. Etching: 
Etching is used to remove materials selectively to create patterns. The pattern
is defined by the etching mask because some parts of material are protected
by mask. The unmasked material is removed by wet or dry etching
 IC FABRICATION STEPS
5. Deposition: Films of the various materials are applied on the wafer.
For this purpose mostly two kind of processes are used, physical vapor
deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD).

6. Chemical Mechanical Polishing: 

A planarization technique by applying a chemical slurry to the wafer
surface.

7. Oxidation: 
It is a process which converts silicon on the wafer into silicon dioxide.
Silicon dioxide layers are used as high quality insulators or masks for ion
implantation.
 IC FABRICATION STEPS
8. Ion Implantation: 
Most widely used technique to introduce dopant impurities into silicon wafer.
The ionized particles are accelerated through an electrical field and targeted at the
semiconductor wafer.
9. Diffusion: 
Diffusion is the movement of impurity atoms in a semiconductor material at high
temperature.
10. Assembling and packaging: Each of the wafers contains lots of chips. These
chips are separated and packaged by method known as cleaving and scribing.