APPLICATIONS of silicon oxide

• Purpose:
  • Insulates between two conductors or semiconductors
  • Mask for different chemical species
  • Mechanical role for MEMS and other devices
• Device applications:
  • gate dielectrics (as it can be seen in the picture below)
  • passivation
  • intermetal dielectric

Only the gate dielectric is thermally grown, the passivation and intermetal dielctrics are deposited by CVD.