High-Purity Quartz Parts in EPI Equipment: Critical Components for Advanced Semiconductor Epitaxy Processing

High-Purity Quartz Parts in EPI Equipment:

Critical Components for Advanced Semiconductor Epitaxy Processing

In semiconductor manufacturing, epitaxial growth (epitaxy) is one of the most chemically sensitive and thermal-intensive process steps. Whether growing single-crystal silicon layers, silicon-germanium (SiGe) strained layers, or compound semiconductors like silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN), an epitaxy reactor operates at high temperatures (often 800°C to 1200°C) under reactive gas atmospheres.

To maintain strict process purity and structural integrity inside the reaction chamber, high-purity fused quartz - specifically synthetic quartz - serves as a primary material for chamber walls, gas delivery components, and internal thermal shielding.

Lower Quartz Dome in EPI Reaction Chamber

Upper Quartz Dome in EPI Reaction Chamber

1. Key Material Requirements in Epitaxy Reactors

Epitaxial deposition requires extreme physical isolation and high material purity. High-purity quartz is uniquely suited to meet these demands due to several critical properties:

Ø High Optical & Infrared Transmittance: Epitaxy systems frequently employ high-intensity infrared (IR) heating lamps located outside the chamber walls. High-purity quartz features excellent transparency across the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared spectra, allowing heating radiation to pass directly through the quartz walls to heat the susceptor and wafer without overheating the quartz enclosure itself.

Ø Extreme Chemical Inertness: Process gases such as silane (SiH₄), dichlorosilane (SiH2Cl2), trichlorosilane (SiHCl3), and dopants like diborane (B2H6) or phosphine (PH3) are highly reactive. High-purity quartz remains stable in these environments and resists etching during in-situ gas-phase cleaning with hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas.

Ø Ultra-Low Impurity Concentrations: Trace metallic impurities (such as sodium, iron, aluminum, and copper) in the chamber material can migrate at high temperatures into the growing crystal lattice, creating recombination centers and degrading device electrical performance. High-purity quartz maintains metallic impurity levels at the parts-per-billion (ppb) or sub-ppb level.

Ø Low Thermal Expansion & Thermal Shock Resistance: Fused quartz has an extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion (≈5.5×10^(-7)), enabling components to endure rapid heating and cooling cycles without cracking or thermal warping.

2. NTJC EPI Products

NTJC is professional fabricator for all types of customized quartz parts, widely used by various types of front-end wafer-processing equipments, including etching, RTP, oxidation & diffusion, thin films, wet benches and etc.

For epitaxy, we supply the quartz parts, such as dome chambers, liners, gas inserts, end effectors, gas partition discs, chamber rings, pedestals, wafer shafts and etc., which are the essential components for epitaxial reactions.

3. Conclusion

Our semiconductor-standard EPI quartz parts are the foundational purity guarantee for epitaxy equipment, directly supporting stable operation of advanced-node front-end wafer processing. If you request for product quotations, customized EPI parts design or any technical consultation for EPI quartz parts, please reach out to our professional team via email: javier.lu@ztt.cn. Thank you.