Gas/Vapor Phase Epi (VPE), Liquid Phase Epi (LPE) & Solid Phase Epi (SPE) Doping Methods in Si, SiGe and Ge: A Historical Review

Today advanced semiconductor device processing uses Gas/Vapor Phase, Liquid Phase and Solid Phase Epitaxy (VPE, LPE and SPE) doping techniques for Si, SiGe and Ge material doping. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is the dominate form of VPE including low-pressure LPCVD. All three epitaxy or (re)crystallization techniques have been used in semiconductor device manufacturing from Bipolar, BiCMOS, CMOS, Image Sensors and Power devices since the 1980s. I will review and discuss key Epi dopant application breakthroughs over the past five decades in this paper.