Abstract: A thermal processing method is provided. First, a semiconductor substrate is provided. The semiconductor substrate has a metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor formed thereon. The metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor includes a gate and source and drain regions on two sides of the gate. Dopants are implanted into the source and drain region and the gate. Next, a cap layer is formed over the semiconductor substrate. Next, a first thermal process is performed, and then a second thermal process is performed. Next, the cap layer is removed. The thermal processing method is capable of uniformly heating a semiconductor substrate and reducing the pattern effect in the fabrication of a CMOS and to improve the performance of the CMOS.