Shrinkage and annihilation of oxidation‐induced stacking faults in silicon have been investigated by means of combined methods of successive annealing in nitrogen atmosphere and etching technique. The shrinkage rates were measured and the activation energies for shrinkage were determined to be 4.1 and 4.9 eV for (111) and (100) surfaces, respectively. Experimental results are interpreted in terms of climbing of a Frank loop, indicating that the shrinkage process is governed by a mechanism in connection with the self‐diffusion of silicon. A novel gettering technique is proposed.