Hello Kirt,
this is an interesting suggestion, can you provide more details ?
Which is the quality of silicon surface after HF etch ? Is it possible to
obtain a DSP surface ?

I want to perform grinding and polishing, how is it possible to determine
depth of lattice damage induced with those operations ?

Best regards,
Andrea

> A trick I've seen used to remove surface damage from grinding and
> polishing
> is to grow a thermal oxide, then etch it off in an HF solution, say 5:1
> BHF.
> It's standard practice to perform a nitrogen anneal after oxidiation to
> recover some of the damage caused by oxide growth.
> The silicon thickness used to grow oxide is 46% of the oxide thickness;
> for
> example, a 0.22-um oxide consumes 0.1 um of silicon.
>     --Kirt Williams