This volume is a collection of papers which were presented at the 2001 International Conference on Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP 2001) held at Ise Shima, Mie, on November 14-16, 2001. This symposium is second conference followed the previous successful first International RTP conference held at Hokkaido in 1997. The RTP 2001 covered the latest developments in RTP and other short-time processing continuously aiming to point out the future direction in the Silicon ULSI devices and II-VI, III-V compound semiconductor devices.This book covers the following areas: advanced MOS gate stack, integration technologies, advancd channel engineering including shallow junction, SiGe, hetero-structure, novel metallization, inter-connect, silicidation, low-k materials, thin dielectrics including gate dielectrics and high-k materials, thin film deposition including SiGe, SOI and SiC, process and device modelling, Laser-assisted crystallization and TFT device fabrication technologies, temperature monitoring and slip-free technologies.

Heat-treatment and thermal annealing are very common processing steps which have been employed during semiconductor manufacturing right from the beginning of integrated circuit technology. In order to minimize undesired diffusion, and other thermal budget-dependent effects, the trend has been to reduce the annealing time sharply by switching from standard furnace batch-processing (involving several hours or even days), to rapid thermal processing involving soaking times of just a few seconds. This transition from thermal equilibrium, to highly non-equilibrium, processing was very challenging and is still a field ripe for further development.

Rapid thermal and integrated processing is an emerging single-wafer technology in ULSI semiconductor manufacturing, electrical engineering, applied physics and materials science. Here, the physics and engineering of this technology are discussed at the graduate level. Three interrelated areas are covered. First, the thermophysics of photon-induced annealing of semiconductor and related materials, including fundamental pyrometry and emissivity issues, the modelling of reactor designs and processes, and their relation to temperature uniformity. Second, process integration, treating the advances in basic equipment design, scale-up, integrated cluster-tool equipment, including wafer cleaning and integrated processing. Third, the deposition and processing of thin epitaxial, dielectric and metal films, covering selective deposition and epitaxy, integrated processing of layer stacks, and new areas of potential application, such as the processing of III-V semiconductor structures and thin- film head processing for high-density magnetic data storage.

Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) is a well established single-wafer technology in USLI semiconductor manufacturing and electrical engineering, as well as in materials science. The biggest advantage of RTP is that it eliminates the long-ramp-up and ramp-down times associated with furnaces, enabling a significant reduction in the thermal budget. Today, RTP is in production use for source/drain implant annealing, contact alloying, formation of refractory nitrides and silicides and thin gate dielectric (oxide) formation. The aim of Symposium I was to provide an overview of the latest information on research and development in the different topics cited above. The potential applications of RTP in new areas like large area devices such as flat planel displays and solar cells has to be investigated. About 30 papers were presented in this symposium. The contributions of most interest involved modelling and control, junctions formation and thermal oxidation, deposition and recrystallisation and silicide formations. However, the range of topics and the intent to focus on underlying, fundamental issues like dopant diffusion in silicon from solid sources, strain relaxation and photonic effects, nucleation as well as applications to magnetic films and solar cells devices.

"Electronics, Dielectric Science and Technology, and High Temperature Materials Divisions."