After the VSS and Periphery P-Well Contact ion implantation and subsequent strip/clean procedures, the silicon lattice retains significant structural damage T1.The implanted dopants initially reside mostly in interstitial positions, rendering them electrically inactive T2.The dopants activation step applies a controlled thermal cycle to repair this crystallographic damage and force the dopant atoms into substitutional lattice sites A1.Occurring immediately before the Contact Etch Stop Layer (CES