Wafer-Scale MOCVD Integration of 2D Materials for CMOS Applications and Beyond
The growing computational demands of edge computing and AI applications are pushing semiconductor technologies to their physical and architectural limits, particularly in power efficiency and memory integration. Two-dimensional (2D) layered materials, with their unique (opto)electronic and mechanical properties, allow addressing the challenges of current Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology and enable emerging energy-efficient applications such as neuromorphic computing, integrated photonic devices, and non-volatile ferroelectric memory. Realizing these applications requires significant advances in the synthesis and CMOS-compatible integration of 2D materials, transitioning from lab-scale demonstrations to volume manufacturing. In this talk, we present recent progress on synthesis and integration of n-type MoS 2 and p-type WSe 2 for CMOS applications in advanced transistor nodes using a Close Coupled Showerhead® (CCS) metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) system integrated into a 300 mm pilot line (Fig. 1A). Achieving uniformity and reproducibility at wafer-scale growth is not only critical for consistent 2D device performance at the circuit level, but also essential for the development of CMOS-compatible process flows. Using AIXTRON’s MOCVD technology, in situ monitoring techniques such as pyrometry and reflectometry are employed to optimize 2D growth and maintain statistical process control on a wafer scale (Fig. 1B). Furthermore, we establish wafer scale ex situ metrology protocols (Fig. 1C) to support the optimization of the growth process. We correlate wafer-scale 2D film properties with field-effect transistor (FET) performance, evaluating key metrics such as carrier mobility and drive current. We further explore additional application spaces of 2D materials beyond CMOS, focusing on graphene for photonic integrated circuits and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) as a passive material that preserves clean van der Waals interfaces with other materials. We demonstrate controlled synthesis of monolayer graphene and multilayer hBN on 200 mm wafers and investigate its resistive-switching behavior in memristors, as well as its superior performance as a gate dielectric in FETs. Overall, the presented advancements in MOCVD technology demonstrate a decisive step toward the industrial integration of 2D materials in future (opto)electronic devices and CMOS fab-compatible manufacturing environments. Fig. 1. (A) Photograph of an AIXTRON 300 mm MOCVD system for 2D materials, featuring automated wafer loading and unloading, and capable of processing 200 mm and 300 mm silicon and sapphire wafers of varying thicknesses. (B) Monitoring 2D layer growth and statistical process control, including run-to-run repeatability assessment (C) Raman spectra of WS 2 within the 300 mm wafer demonstrating excellent uniformity . Figure 1