ABSTRACTThere are fundamental differences between conventional furnace processing (CFP) and rapid isothermal processing (RIP). The radiation spectrum of a conventional furnace consists of photons in the infrared and longer wavelength regions, whereas the spectrum of the incoherent light sources used in RIP consist of some ultraviolet, visible, and infrared photons. As compared to CFP, the photophysical and photochemical effects associated with RIP provide the capability of lower temperature processing. Due to photoeffects in RIP, differences are observed in junction movement and defect evolution with different lamp configurations and different kinds of lamps having differing spectra. This implies that diffusion models, in addition to considering processing time and temperature, should also account for the lamp configurations and spectra of the heating sources. The fundamental understanding of photoeffects in RIP can be further exploited to reduce the overall thermal budget used in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices. In this paper we present our study of photoeffects in RIP, which can be of help in the design of the next generation of RIP equipment.