Novellus Systems Incorporated

Lam Research Corporation

Lan Research Corporation

Novellius Systems, Inc.

Bart Jan Van Schravendijk

George Andrew Antonelli

Dennis Michael Hausmann

Mandyam Sriram

Patrick A Van Cleemput

Adrien Lavoie

Ananda K Banerji

Bhadri N Varadarajan

Jon Henri

Shankar Swaminathan

David Charles Smith

Vishwanathan Rangarajan

Seshasayee Varadarajan

Jun Qian

Pramod Subramonium

Nerissa Sue Draeger

Keith Fox

Jennifer O'Loughlin

Hu Kang

Kaihan Abidi Ashtiani

Thomas W Mountsier

Akhil N Singhal

Purushottam Kumar

Joseph Abel

Kaushik Chattopadhyay

Kevin M McLaughlin

Richard Stephan Wise

Ming Chu Li

Nagraj Shankar

Dong Niu

Mahesh K Sanganeria

Arpan Pravin Mahorowala

Hui-Jung Wu

Easwar Srinivasan

Yongsik Yu

Adrien LaVoie

Vishal Gauri

Karl Frederick Leeser

Deenesh Padhi

Michal Danek

Girish Anant Dixit

George D Papasouliotis

Vikram Singh

Christopher William Burkhart

Patrick G Breiling

Andrew John McKerrow

Md Sazzadur Rahman

Robert T Rozbicki

Bryan L Buckalew

Ramesh Chandrasekharan

Roey Shaviv

Frank Loren Pasquale

Kevin J Ilcisin

Jengyi Yu

Haiying Fu

Ishtak Karim

Chloe Baldasseroni

M Ziaul Karim

Pulkit Agarwal

Bo Gong

Huatan Qiu

Jennifer Leigh Petraglia

Rachel E Batzer

Geoffrey Hohn

Douglas Walter Agnew

Paul Raymond Besser

Thorsten B Lill

John Stephen Drewery

Raashina Humayun

Wai-Fan Yau

Artur Kolics

David Cohen

Samantha SiamHwa Tan

Meihua Shen

Victor Y Lu

Richard Howard Gould

Edward J Augustyniak

Seon-Mee Cho

Sanjay Gopinath

Mark Naoshi Kawaguchi

Somnath S Nag

Gerardo Delgadino

Jeffrey A Tobin

James Samuel Sims

Sirish K Reddy

Nader Shamma

Shambhu Nath Roy

Justin F Gaynor

Dhritiman Subha Kashyap

Ivan Berry

Feng Wang

Yoshie Kimura

Gowri Kamarthy

Patrick Reilly

Richard S Hill

Dengliang Yang

Henner Meinhold

Brian Lu

Sesha Varadarajan

Mark A Logan

Methods and apparatuses for depositing thin films using long and short conversion times during alternating cycles of atomic layer deposition (ALD) are provided herein. Embodiments involve alternating conversion duration of an ALD cycle in one or more cycles of a multi-cycle ALD process. Some embodiments involve modulation of dose, purge, pressure, plasma power or plasma energy in two or more ALD cycles.

Modulated atomic layer deposition

Methods of forming air gaps in hole and trench structures are disclosed. The methods may be used to form buried voids, i.e., voids for which the top is below the top of the adjacent features. The methods include inhibition of the hole or trench structures and selective deposition at the top of the structure forming an air gap within the structures. In some embodiments, the methods are to reduce intra-level capacitance in semiconductor devices.

Reducing intralevel capacitance in semiconductor devices

Various embodiments herein relate to methods and apparatus for depositing doped and undoped silicon-containing films having a high degree of purity. In one example, the method includes exposing the substrate to a first reactant and a second reactant; reacting the first and second reactants with one another to form a silicon-containing material and depositing a portion of the silicon-containing film on the substrate; before the silicon-containing film is complete, performing an impurity reduction operation including: (i) generating a plasma from a plasma generation gas comprising inert gas and hydrogen, where the plasma generation gas is substantially free of oxygen, and (ii) exposing the substrate to the plasma to thereby reduce a concentration of fluorine, carbon, hydrogen, and/or nitrogen in the silicon-containing film; and repeating these operations (or a subset thereof) until the silicon-containing film is deposited to a final thickness.

Impurity reduction in silicon-containing films

A method of depositing a film stack including films of different compositions in a process station using a plasma is described. The method includes: in a first plasma-activated film deposition phase, depositing a first film having a first film composition on a substrate, and, in a second plasma-activated deposition phase, depositing a second film having a second film composition on the first film, where the second film composition is different from the first film composition. Deposition of the first film can include delivering at least two first deposition phase reactants to the process station via a delivery line; and deposition of the second film can include delivering at least two second deposition phase reactants to the process station via the same delivery line that was used during deposition of the first film. The method may also include a step of purging the delivery line.

Plasma-enhanced deposition of film stacks

Films that can be useful in large area gap fill applications, such as in the formation of advanced 3D NAND devices, involve processing a semiconductor substrate by depositing on a patterned semiconductor substrate a doped silicon oxide film, the film having a thickness of at least 5 μm, and annealing the doped silicon oxide film to a temperature above the film glass transition temperature. In some embodiments, reflow of the film may occur. The composition and processing conditions of the doped silicon oxide film may be tailored so that the film exhibits substantially zero as-deposited stress, substantially zero stress shift post-anneal, and substantially zero shrinkage post-anneal.

Low stress films for advanced semiconductor applications

Provided herein are methods and apparatus for filling one or more gaps on a semiconductor substrate. The disclosed embodiments are especially useful for forming seam-free, void-free fill in both narrow and wide features. The methods may be performed without any intervening etching operations to achieve a single step deposition. In various implementations, a first operation is performed using a novel PEALD fill mechanism to fill narrow gaps and line wide gaps. A second operation may be performed using PECVD methods to continue filling the wide gaps.

Gapfill of variable aspect ratio features with a composite PEALD and PECVD method

In some examples, a method of processing a substrate comprises applying a photoresist (PR) onto a surface of the substrate, pre-exposing the PR to ultra violet (UV) light before depositing or etching a metal oxide (MO) layer onto the PR, and depositing or etching a MO layer onto the PR subsequent to pre-exposing the PR to UV light.

Bubble defect reduction

A method for doping a substrate is provided. A silicon oxide diffusion barrier layer is formed on a surface of the substrate. At least one dopant layer is deposited over the silicon oxide diffusion barrier layer. A cap layer is deposited over the at least one dopant layer forming a stack of the substrate, the silicon oxide diffusion layer, the at least one dopant layer, and the cap layer. The stack is annealed. The cap layer, at least one dopant layer, and the silicon oxide diffusion barrier layer are removed.

Method for providing doped silicon using a diffusion barrier layer

Tin oxide films are used to create air gaps during semiconductor substrate processing. Tin oxide films, disposed between exposed layers of other materials, such as SiOand SiN can be selectively etched using a plasma formed in an H-containing process gas. The etching creates a recessed feature in place of the tin oxide between the surrounding materials. A third material, such as SiOis deposited over the resulting recessed feature without fully filling the recessed feature, forming an air gap. A method for selectively etching tin oxide in a presence of SiO, SiC, SiN, SiOC, SiNO, SiCNO, or SiCN, includes, in some embodiments, contacting the substrate with a plasma formed in a process gas comprising at least about 50% H. Etching of tin oxide can be performed without using an external bias at the substrate and is preferably performed at a temperature of less than about 100° C.

Method to create air gaps

Disclosed are methods for the formation of silicon nitride (SiN) on only the horizontal surfaces of structures such as 3D NAND staircase. This allows for thicker landing pads for subsequently formed vias. In some embodiments, the methods involve deposition of a SiN layer over a staircase followed by a treatment to selectively densify the SiN layer on the horizontal surfaces with respect to the sidewall surfaces. A wet etch is then performed to remove SiN from the sidewall surfaces. The selective treatment results in significantly different wet etch rates (WERs) between the horizontal surfaces and the sidewalls.

Etch stop layer

Methods and apparatuses are provided herein for oxidizing an annular edge region of a substrate. A method may include providing the substrate to a substrate holder in a semiconductor processing chamber, the semiconductor processing chamber having a showerbead positioned above the substrate holder, and simultaneously flowing, while the substrate is supported by the substrate holder, (a) an oxidizing gas around a periphery of the substrate and (b) an inert gas that does not include oxygen through the showerhead and onto the substrate, thereby creating an annular gas region over an annular edge region of the substrate and an interior gas region over on an interior region of the substrate; the simultaneous flowing is not during a deposition of a material onto the substrate, and the annular gas region has an oxidization rate higher than the interior gas region.

Modulation of oxidation profile for substrate processing

A method for processing a substrate is described. A first reactant in vapor phase is introduced into a reaction chamber having the substrate therein. The first reactant is allowed to be adsorb onto the substrate surface. The non-reactive portion of the first reactant is purged from the reaction chamber after a flow of the first reactant has ceased. The second reactant is introduced in vapor phase into the reaction chamber while the first reactant is adsorbed onto the substrate surface. The second reactant comprises a 1:1:1 ratio of dihydrogen (H2), a nitro-gen-containing reactant, and an oxygen-containing reactant. A plasma is ignited based on the second reactant. The substrate surface is exposed to the plasma. The plasma is extinguished. Gas from the reaction chamber is purged.

Oxidative conversion in atomic layer deposition processes

Methods for forming patterned multi-layer stacks including a metal-containing layer are provided herein. Methods involve using silicon-containing non-metal materials in a multi-layer stack including one sacrificial layer to be later removed and replaced with metal while maintaining etch contrast to pattern the multi-layer stack and selectively remove the sacrificial layer prior to depositing metal. Methods involve using silicon oxycarbide in lieu of silicon nitride, and a sacrificial non-metal material in lieu of a metal-containing layer, to fabricate the multi-layer stack, pattern the multi-layer stack, selectively remove the sacrificial non-metal material to leave spaces in the stack, and deposit metal-containing material into the spaces. Sacrificial non-metal materials include silicon nitride and doped polysilicon, such as boron-doped silicon.

Film stack simplification for high aspect ratio patterning and vertical scaling

A plasma generating system generates plasma in a processing chamber. A controller is configured to: a) perform atomic layer deposition (ALD) N times to deposit film in a feature of the substrate; b) after performing a) M of the N times, supply an inhibitor plasma gas to the processing chamber and strike plasma in the processing chamber to create a passivated surface more on upper portions of the feature as compared to lower portions of the feature to inhibit the atomic layer deposition in the upper portions of the feature as compared to the lower portions of the feature; c) supply an etch gas to the processing chamber to etch the film more in the upper portions of the feature than in the lower portions in the feature of the substrate following b); and d) repeat a) to c) one or more times to gapfill the feature without voids.

Dielectric gapfill using atomic layer deposition (ALD), inhibitor plasma and etching

Thin tin oxide films are used as spacers in semiconductor device manufacturing. In one implementation, formation of spacers involves deposition of a tin oxide layer on a semiconductor substrate having multiple protruding features. The deposition is performed in a deposition apparatus having a controller with program instructions configured to cause sequential contacting of the semiconductor substrate with a tin-containing precursor and an oxygen-containing precursor such as to coat the semiconductor substrate having the protruding features with a tin oxide layer. Next, tin oxide film is removed from horizontal surfaces, without being completely removed from the sidewalls of the protruding features. Next, the material of protruding features is etched away, leaving tin oxide spacers on the semiconductor substrate.

Tin oxide thin film spacers in semiconductor device manufacturing

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Bart Jan Van Schravendijk