Isonics and Voltaix to Offer Silicon-29 Dopant

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 2/1/1999

Isonics Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) entered an agreement with Voltaix Inc. (North Branch, N.J.) to offer enriched silicon-29 tetrafluoride for use in ion implantation of gallium arsenide (GaAs) devices. Using enriched silicon-29 may increase implantation productivity by as much as 500%.

While ion implanters can select any one of the three naturally occurring isotopes of silicon for implantation, silicon-29 is desirable, because its mass is not the same as the other chemical species that may be inadvertently implanted along with silicon, like nitrogen or carbon monoxide.