Semiconductor Growth Substrates with Dummy Structures for Uniform Epitaxy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional techniques for growing semiconductor materials to produce LED structures often result in uneven distribution, leading to non-uniformities in manufacturing and light production in solid state transducer (SST) devices, necessitating improved manufacturing techniques.
Innovation Solution
The use of dummy structures at street regions on growth substrates to improve material uniformity, reduce stress, and prevent over-accumulation of epitaxially grown materials, achieved through selective area epitaxial growth and sacrificial processes, including the formation of aluminum nitride seed layers and subsequent semiconductor material deposition.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If conventional techniques are used to grow semiconductor materials on growth substrates, then the manufacturing process is simple, but the semiconductor material distribution becomes uneven, leading to non-uniformities in SST devices
Solution Approach 1:
The growth substrate is divided into device growth regions and street regions, with further segmentation into first and second portions. This segmentation allows selective area epitaxial growth to occur only in device growth regions, preventing material accumulation in street regions and improving uniformity of semiconductor material distribution across the substrate.
Solution Approach 2:
The growth substrate is designed with different properties in different regions: device growth regions have properties that promote epitaxial growth, while street regions have properties that prevent growth. This local differentiation ensures uniform material distribution by confining growth to where it is needed, directly addressing the uniformity issue without requiring complex overall substrate design.
2Manufacturing precision
If epitaxial growth is performed without preventing material accumulation in street regions, then the manufacturing process is simple, but over-accumulation occurs at street regions, causing non-uniformities
Solution Approach 1:
The growth substrate is pre-configured with street regions that have properties preventing epitaxial growth before the actual semiconductor material deposition. This preliminary preparation ensures that during the epitaxial growth process, material automatically accumulates only in device growth regions, eliminating the need for complex real-time control mechanisms and maintaining ease of manufacture while achieving uniform distribution.
3Manufacturing precision
If growth substrates are used without stress management features, then the manufacturing process is simple, but wafer bowing and stress-related issues occur during manufacturing
Solution Approach 1:
The growth substrate is segmented into device growth regions and street regions, where street regions act as stress management zones. This segmentation allows the substrate to maintain flatness during manufacturing by distributing stress uniformly across the structure, preventing wafer bowing without requiring additional complex stress management components.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enhances the uniformity of semiconductor material growth, reduces stress-related issues like wafer bowing, and improves the yield of SST devices by ensuring flat, uniform underlying layers, facilitating subsequent processes and reducing edge over-accumulations.
Implementation Method 1
selective area epitaxial growth
Implementation Method 2
reduce stress, and prevent over-accumulation of epitaxially grown materials
Data Source
AI summary
Semiconductor growth substrates and associated systems and methods for die singulation are disclosed. A representative method for manufacturing semiconductor devices includes forming spaced-apart structures at a dicing street located between neighboring device growth regions of a substrate material. The method can further include epitaxially growing a semiconductor material by adding a first portion of semiconductor material to the device growth regions and adding a second portion of semiconductor material to the structures. The method can still further include forming semiconductor devices at the device growth regions, and separating the semiconductor devices from each other at the dicing street by removing the spaced-apart structures and the underlying substrate material at the dicing street.