Review of Major Innovations in Beam Line Design

Since the beginnings of ion implantation in 1970, the beam lines used in ion implanter machines have undergone a long history of innovation and development not only for commercial manufacture of semiconductor diodes, transistors, ultra-large scale integrated circuits, and SiO2 insulating layers, but also in more recent years for making high resolution displays using thin film transistor (LCD/TFT) or active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) techniques. Also, high current proton implantation beam lines have been developed for induced exfoliation to make solar cell and other types of membranes. As wafer size has increased to 300 mm, dose range to 10
⁸
and energy range to 10
⁴
, major innovations have been made in beam lines to meet these needs as well as achieving: high implant uniformity over the entire wafer surface; improved ion specie and ion energy purity; lower and lower particulate counts; small angular range of ion trajectories impinging on the wafer especially in medium current machines; high wafer throughput especially at very low energies; and the transition from high current and high energy batch implanters to serial implanters. Beam lines designed to transport and mass analyze uniform flood beams to implant large TFT and AMOLED display panels are also described.