Applied Materials, Inc.

Bo Xie

Kang Sub Yim

Alexandros T Demos

Li-Qun Xia

Yijun Liu

Ruitong Xiong

Sure Ngo

Kelvin Chan

Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

Sanjeev Baluja

Thomas E Nowak

Scott A Hendrickson

Daemian Raj

Abhijit Ashok Kangude

Daping Yao

Mahendra Chhabra

Inna Turevsky

Mehul B Naik

Xianmin Tang

Chi-I Lang

Deenesh Padhi

He Ren

Jianshe Tang

Wei Guang Lu

Zhiyong Li

Taewan Kim

Cheng Pan

Shaunak Mukherjee

Han Wang

Vu Ngoc Tran Nguyen

Chengyu Liu

Xiaobo Li

Xinyi Lu

Shinjae Kwon

Fredrick Kim

Yi Ding

In some embodiments, a method includes positioning a substrate within a processing chamber. The substrate includes a first low-k film having a first water contact angle. The first low-k film is disposed over an interconnect structure. The method further includes cleaning the substrate within the processing chamber to form a cleaned substrate. The cleaned substrate includes a damaged low-k film having a second water contact angle. The method further includes exposing the cleaned substrate to a recovery precursor to form a recovered substrate. The recovered substrate includes a recovered low-k film. The method further includes exposing the recovered substrate to a UV light source to form a treated substrate. The treated substrate includes a treated low-k film having a third water contact angle. The method further includes depositing a liner layer over the treated substrate via atomic layer deposition (ALD).

Integrated low k recovery and ALD metal deposition process for advanced technology node

Exemplary semiconductor processing methods may include providing a silicon-containing precursor to a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. A substrate may be disposed within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may include forming a plasma of the silicon-containing precursor in the processing region. The plasma may be at least partially formed by an RF power operating at between about 50 W and 1,000 W, at a pulsing frequency below about 100,000 Hz, and at a duty cycle between about 5% and 95%. The methods may include forming a layer of material on the substrate. The layer of material may include a silicon-containing material.

RF pulsing assisted low-k film deposition with high mechanical strength

Method of forming low-k films with reduced dielectric constant, reduced CHx content, and increased hardness are described. A siloxane film is on a substrate surface using a siloxane precursor comprising O—Si—O bonds and cured using ultraviolet light.

Single precursor low-k film deposition and UV cure for advanced technology node

Exemplary methods of forming a silicon-and-carbon-containing material may include flowing a silicon-oxygen-and-carbon-containing precursor into a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. A substrate may be housed within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may include forming a plasma within the processing region of the silicon-and-carbon-containing precursor. The plasma may be formed at a frequency less than 15 MHz (e.g., 13.56 MHz). The methods may include depositing a silicon-and-carbon-containing material on the substrate. The silicon-and-carbon-containing material as-deposited may be characterized by a dielectric constant below or about 3.5 and a hardness greater than about 3 Gpa.

Systems and methods for depositing low-k dielectric films

A method for dielectric filling of a feature on a substrate yields a seamless dielectric fill with high-k for narrow features. In some embodiments, the method may include depositing a metal material into the feature to fill the feature from a bottom of the feature wherein the feature has an opening ranging from less than 20 nm to approximately 150 nm at an upper surface of the substrate and wherein depositing the metal material is performed using a high ionization physical vapor deposition (PVD) process to form a seamless metal gap fill and treating the seamless metal gap fill by oxidizing/nitridizing the metal material of the seamless metal gap fill with an oxidation/nitridation process to form dielectric material wherein the seamless metal gap fill is converted into a seamless dielectric gap fill with high-k dielectric material.

Methods for seamless gap filling of dielectric material

Semiconductor processing methods are described for forming UV-treated, low-&#x3ba; dielectric films. The methods may include flowing deposition precursors into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The deposition precursors may include a silicon-and-carbon-containing precursor. The methods may further include generating a deposition plasma from the deposition precursors within the substrate processing region, and depositing a silicon-and-carbon-containing material on the substrate from plasma effluents of the deposition plasma. The as-deposited silicon-and-carbon-containing material may be characterized by greater than or about 5% hydrocarbon groups. The methods may still further include exposing the deposited silicon-and-carbon-containing material to ultraviolet light. The exposed silicon-and-carbon-containing material may be characterized by less than or about 2% hydrocarbon groups.

Systems and methods for forming UV-cured low-&#x3ba; dielectric films

Embodiments of the semiconductor processing methods to form low-&#x3ba; films on semiconductor substrates are described. The processing methods may include flowing deposition precursors into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The deposition precursors may include a silicon-containing precursor that has at least one vinyl group. The methods may further include generating a deposition plasma in the substrate processing region from the deposition precursors. A silicon-and-carbon-containing material, characterized by a dielectric constant (&#x3ba; value) less than or about 3.0, may be deposited on the substrate from plasma effluents of the deposition plasma.

Systems and methods for depositing low-&#x3ba;dielectric films

Exemplary semiconductor processing methods to clean a substrate processing chamber are described. The methods may include depositing a dielectric film on a first substrate in a substrate processing chamber, where the dielectric film may include a silicon-carbon-oxide. The first substrate having the dielectric film may be removed from the substrate processing chamber, and the dielectric film may be deposited on at least one more substrate in the substrate processing chamber. The at least one more substrate may be removed from the substrate processing chamber after the dielectric film is deposited on the substrate. Etch plasma effluents may flow into the substrate processing chamber after the removal of a last substrate having the dielectric film. The etch plasma effluents may include greater than or about 500 sccm of NFplasma effluents, and greater than or about 1000 sccm of Oplasma effluents.

Systems and methods for cleaning low-k deposition chambers

A method of forming a low-k dielectric layer with barrier properties is disclosed. The method comprises forming a dielectric layer by PECVD which is doped with one or more of boron, nitrogen or phosphorous. The dopant gas of some embodiments may be coflowed with the other reactants during deposition.

Low-k dielectric with self-forming barrier layer

Embodiments described herein provide a method for sealing a porous low-k dielectric film. The method includes forming a sealing layer on the porous low-k dielectric film using a cyclic process. The cyclic process includes repeating a sequence of depositing a sealing layer on the porous low-k dielectric film and treating the sealing layer until the sealing layer achieves a predetermined thickness. The treating of each intermediate sealing layer generates more reactive sites on the surface of each intermediate sealing layer, which improves the quality of the resulting sealing layer.

UV assisted silylation for porous low-k film sealing

A cleaning method for a UV chamber involves providing a first cleaning gas, a second cleaning gas, and a purge gas to one or more openings in the chamber. The first cleaning gas may be an oxygen containing gas, such as ozone, to remove carbon residues. The second cleaning gas may be a remote plasma of NFand Oto remove silicon residues. The UV chamber may have two UV transparent showerheads, which together with a UV window in the chamber lid, define a gas volume proximate the UV window and a distribution volume below the gas volume. A purge gas may be flowed through the gas volume while one or more of the cleaning gases is flowed into the distribution volume to prevent the cleaning gases from impinging on the UV transparent window.

Method and hardware for cleaning UV chambers

Embodiments of the disclosure generally provide multi-layer dielectric stack configurations that are resistant to plasma damage. Methods are disclosed for the deposition of thin protective low dielectric constant layers upon bulk low dielectric constant layers to create the layer stack. As a result, the dielectric constant of the multi-layer stack is unchanged during and after plasma processing.

Multi-layer dielectric stack for plasma damage protection

Embodiments of the invention generally provide methods for sealing pores at a surface of a dielectric layer formed on a substrate. In one embodiment, the method includes exposing a dielectric layer formed on a substrate to a first pore sealing agent, wherein the first pore sealing agent contains a compound with a general formula CHO, where x has a range of between 1 and 15, y has a range of between 2 and 22, and z has a range of between 1 and 3, and exposing the substrate to UV radiation in an atmosphere of the first pore sealing agent to form a first sealing layer on the dielectric layer.

UV-assisted photochemical vapor deposition for damaged low K films pore sealing

The present invention provides systems, methods and apparatus for manufacturing a memory cell. The invention includes forming a feature having sidewalls in a first dielectric material; forming a first conductive material on the sidewalls of the feature; depositing a layer of a second dielectric material on the conductive material; and exposing the second dielectric material to oxidizing species and ultraviolet light to oxidize the second dielectric material. Numerous additional aspects are disclosed.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Bo Xie