Low Oi MCZ

The CZ ingot growing process uses a fused quartz crucible to contain the silicon melt as the crystal is drawn over a period of up to 36 hours. Although structurally stable, this quartz crucible slowly devitrifies and dissolves during the course of the crystal's growth, liberating oxygen into the silicon melt and resulting in the oxygen concentration that characterizes CZ silicon. Control of crucible rotations and the environment within the crystal growing furnace has allowed engineers to minimize the oxygen concentration of CZ grown crystal but, until the advent of the magnetic CZ (MCZ) process, there have been very practical limits on the extent of such controls.

In the MCZ process, a super conducting magnet sits alongside of the crystal growing furnace and generates a magnetic field that inhibits the turbulent thermal convection that conveys oxygen through the silicon melt. Crystal growing engineers can now use this magnetic field to significantly limit the incorporation of oxygen in the crystal and also to produce more uniform crystal by stabilizing the temperature at the melt-crystal interface. Essentially, the magnetic field increases the viscosity of the silicon melt.

Low Oi levels reduce the amount of oxygen related thermal donors which can degrade the resistivity of silicon. For specific applications in which the presence of the heavy precipitation associated with the High Res FOP is not desirable, low Oi MCZ silicon may be a good choice.