Semiconductor device including a plurality of thin film transistors at least some of which have a crystalline silicon film crystal-grown substantially in parallel to the surface of a substrate for the transistor

• US 5,604,360 A
• Filed: 05/24/1994
• Issued: 02/18/1997
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/1992
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Takayama, Toru, Takemura, Yasuhiko, Zhang, Hongyong, Miyanaga, Akiharu
• Primary Examiner(s): LOKE, STEVEN HO YIN
• Application Number:
  US08/248,220
• Time in Patent Office: 1,001 Days
• Field of Search: 257/57, 257/59, 257/66, 257/72, 257/347, 257/350, 257/351, 257/352
• US Class Current: 257/72
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2300/0408 Integration of the drivers onto the display substrate
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/02422 Non-crystalline insulating materials, e.g. glass, polymers
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/02488 Insulating materials
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/02532 Silicon, silicon germanium, germanium
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/02672 using crystallisation enhancing elements
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/02675 using laser beams
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/02678 Beam shaping, e.g. using a mask
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/02686 Pulsed laser beam
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 27/1214 comprising a plurality of TFTs formed on a non-semiconducting substrate, e.g. driving circuits for AMLCDs
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 27/1277 using a crystallisation promoting species, e.g. local introduction of Ni catalyst
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 29/66757 Lateral single gate single channel transistors with non-inverted structure, i.e. the channel layer is formed before the gate

Abstract

Nickel is introduced to a predetermined region of a peripheral circuit section, other than a picture element section, on an amorphous silicon film to crystallize from that region. After forming gate electrodes and others, sources, drains and channels are formed by doping impurities, and laser is irradiated to improve the crystallization. After that, electrodes/wires are formed. Thereby an active matrix type liquid crystal display whose thin film transistors (TFT) in the peripheral circuit section are composed of the crystalline silicon film whose crystal is grown in the direction parallel to the flow of carriers and whose TFTs in the picture element section are composed of the amorphous silicon film can be obtained.

Claims

1. A semiconductor device, comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein a first part of the plurality of thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction approximately in parallel to a surface of the substrate and a second part of the plurality of thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film.

2. A semiconductor device according to claim 1 wherein each of the thin film transistors formed on the substrate includes a source region, a channel region, and a drain region and wherein said crystalline silicon film extends through at least the channel region of each of said thin film transistors of said first part of the plurality of thin film transistors.

3. A semiconductor device, comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein a first part of the plurality of thin film transistors is provided as a peripheral circuit section of an active matrix type liquid crystal display and a second part of the plurality of thin film transistors is provided as a picture element section of the active matrix type liquid crystal display, and

the thin film transistors provided as the peripheral circuit section have a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction parallel to a surface of the substrate and the thin film transistors provided as the picture element section have an amorphous silicon film.

4. A semiconductor device according to claim 3 wherein each of the thin film transistors formed on the substrate includes a source region, a channel region, and a drain region and wherein said crystalline silicon film extends through at least the channel region of each of said thin film transistors of said first part of the plurality of thin film transistors.

5. An active matrix type liquid crystal display, comprising:

a picture element section having a plurality of thin film transistors respectively associated with a plurality of picture element electrodes and

driving circuit means including a plurality of thin film transistors for driving the thin film transistors of the picture element section,

wherein the thin film transistors of the driving circuit means each has a substrate and has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction approximately parallel to the surface of the substrate and the thin film transistors of the picture element section each has an amorphous silicon film.

6. An active matrix type liquid crystal display according to claim 5 wherein each of the thin film transistors of the driving circuit means includes a source region, a channel region, and a drain region and wherein said crystalline silicon film extends through at least said channel region.

7. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film, and

wherein the crystalline silicon film includes a metal element.

8. The device of claim 7 wherein the metal element includes one of Ni, Fe, Co, Pd and Pt.

9. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film, and

wherein the crystalline silicon film and the amorphous silicon film each includes a metal element and a concentration of the metal element included in the crystalline silicon film is higher than that included in the amorphous silicon film.

10. The device of claim 9 wherein the metal element includes one of Ni, Fe, Co, Pd and Pt.

11. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film, and

wherein the crystalline silicon film include a metal element and has a concentrations of 1×

10¹⁵ to 5×

10¹⁹ atoms/cm³.

12. The device of claim 11 wherein the metal element includes one of Ni, Fe, Co, Pd and Pt.

13. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film, and

wherein the crystalline silicon film and the amorphous silicon film each includes a metal element, a concentration of the metal element included in the crystalline silicon film is higher than that included in the amorphous silicon film, and the concentration of the metal element included in crystalline silicon film is 1×

10¹⁵ to 5×

10¹⁹ atoms/cm³.

14. The device of claim 13 wherein the metal element includes one of Ni, Fe, Co, Pd and Pt.

15. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate having a glass strain point of 593°

C. or less; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film.

16. The device of claim 15 wherein the substrate includes Corning 7059.

17. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction which coincides with a carrier moving direction and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film.

18. A semiconductor device for an active matrix type liquid crystal display having an peripheral driving circuit portion and a picture element portion, comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors is provided in the peripheral driving circuit portion and at least another one of the thin film transistors is provided in the picture element portion, and

wherein the thin film transistor provided in the peripheral driving circuit portion has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction which coincides with a carrier moving direction and the thin film transistors provided in the picture element portion has an amorphous silicon film.

19. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a semiconductor film which has a first crystallinity and includes crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has a semiconductor film having a second crystallinity lower than the first crystallinity.

20. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film, and

wherein the crystalline silicon film and the amorphous silicon film each includes hydrogen.

21. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film, and

wherein the crystalline silicon film includes nickel.

22. The device of claim 21 wherein the nickel has a concentration of 1×

10¹⁵ to 5×

10¹⁹ atoms/cm³.

23. A semiconductor device comprising:

a substrate; and

a plurality of thin film transistors formed on the substrate,

wherein at least one of the thin film transistors has a crystalline silicon film including crystals having a crystal growth direction in parallel to the substrate and at least another one of the thin film transistors has an amorphous silicon film, and

wherein the crystalline silicon film and the amorphous silicon film each includes nickel and a concentration of nickel included in the crystalline silicon film is higher than that included in the amorphous silicon film.

24. The device of claim 23 wherein the nickel has a concentration of 1×

10¹⁵ to 5×

10¹⁹ atoms/cm³ in the crystalline silicon film.