The ability of silicon to react with oxygen to silicon dioxide that has excellent mechanical and electrical properties, has been a crucial factor in the development of silicon IC technology.
Thermally grown silicon dioxide has several uses:
To predict the thermal growth of oxidation it is necessary to have an appropriate theory to describe the arising phenomena during the oxidation process. In this chapter the theory of the local oxidation based on the fundamental work of Deal and Grove [Dea65] is presented, and due to the coupling between oxidation and diffusion a short introduction of diffusion is given describing the phenomena of mass transport. A more detailed description of local oxidation, especially the mechanical behavior of silicon and silicon dioxide, is presented in Chapter 5.