Method for manufacturing a semiconductor structure having reduced lateral spacing between buried regions

Claim 1

In a process for fabricating a semiconductor structure, a method for reducing the lateral spacing between buried regions, the method comprising the steps of: providing a semiconductor substrate of a first conductivity type having an electrically insulating layer along an upper surface of the substrate; forming two laterally spaced apart holes through the insulating layer to the upper surface of the substrate; introducing a semiconductor dopant of a second conductivity type opposite to the first conductivity type through the holes in the insulating layer into the substrate to form two laterally spaced apart doped regions of the second conductivity type in the substrate; removing the remainder of the insulating layer; implanting ions of a chemical species of the first conductivity type into the upper surface of the substrate at a selected dosage; forming an epitaxial layer on the upper surface of the substrate; forming a groove in a portion of the epitaxial layer overlying that portion of the substrate between the doped regions of the substrate; and exposing the surface of the epitaxial layer exposed by the groove to a selected oxidizing environment to form an electrically insulating oxidized region which extends down into a portion of the substrate between the doped regions wherein ions of the chemical species implanted into the surface of the substrate diffuse downwardly during the exposing step to define a more highly doped region of the first conductivity type between the doped regions and adjacent to the oxidized regions, the more highly doped region having a net dopant concentration greater than the net dopant concentration of an adjacent portion of the first conductivity type of the substrate and the selected dosage being sufficiently high such that no inversion into a doped region of the second conductivity type occurs in the more highly doped region, whereby the more highly doped and oxidized regions in combination electrically isolate the doped regions from each other.