Rapid isothermal processing for fabrication of GaAs-basedelectronic devices [HBTs]

The use of rapid isothermal processing (RIP) is detailed for each of the three annealing steps in the fabrication of heterostructure-based devices such as heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs). RIP can be used for the alloying of ohmic metal contacts, annealing of ion-bombarded regions for device isolation or parasitic capacitance reduction, and for conventional implant activation annealing. High-speed (f_T=65 GHz) HBTs were achieved using RIP for all of the required heating steps. The authors compare the use of several types of silicon carbide-coated graphite susceptors for eliminating slip formation on 2- and 3-in-diameter GaAs wafers during high-temperature implant activation annealing