Applied Materials, Inc.

Cory M Czarnik

Christopher Sean Olsen

Thai Cheng Chua

Vedapuram S Achutharaman

Mehran Behdjat

Sundar Ramamurthy

Yoshitaka Yokota

Philip Allan Kraus

Khaled Ahmed

James P Cruse

Klaus-Dieter Rinnen

Andreas G Hegedus

Mahalingam Venkatesan

A method and apparatus for oxidizing materials used in semiconductor integrated circuits, for example, for oxidizing silicon to form a dielectric gate. An ozonator is capable of producing a stream of least 70% ozone. The ozone passes into an RTP chamber through a water-cooled injector projecting into the chamber. Other gases such as hydrogen to increase oxidation rate, diluent gas such as nitrogen or O, enter the chamber through another inlet. The chamber is maintained at a low pressure below 20 Torr and the substrate is advantageously maintained at a temperature less than 800&#xb0; C. Alternatively, the oxidation may be performed in an LPCVD chamber including a pedestal heater and a showerhead gas injector in opposition to the pedestal.

Method of thermally treating silicon with oxygen

Water cooled gas injector

Thermal oxidation of silicon using ozone

A method for fabricating a gate dielectric of a field effect transistor is disclosed herein. In one embodiment, the method includes the steps of removing a native oxide layer, forming an oxide layer, forming a gate dielectric layer over the oxide layer, oxidizing the gate dielectric layer, and annealing the layers and underlying thermal oxide/silicon interface. Optionally, the oxide layer may be nitridized prior to forming the gate dielectric layer. Optionally, the gate dielectric layer may be nitridized prior to oxidizing the gate dielectric layer. In one embodiment, at least portions of the method are performed using processing reactors arranged on a cluster tool.

Method for fabricating a gate dielectric of a field effect transistor

A method for fabricating a gate dielectric of a field effect transistor is provided. In one embodiment, the method includes removing a native oxide layer, forming an oxide layer, forming a gate dielectric layer over the oxide layer, forming an oxide layer over the gate dielectric layer, and annealing the layers and underlying thermal oxide/silicon interface. Optionally, the oxide layer may be nitridized prior to forming the gate dielectric layer. In one embodiment, the oxide layer on the substrate is formed by depositing the oxide layer, and the oxide layer on the gate dielectric layer is formed by oxidizing at least a portion of the gate dielectric layer using an oxygen-containing plasma. In another embodiment, the oxide layer on the gate dielectric layer is formed by forming a thermal oxide layer, i.e., depositing the oxide layer on the gate dielectric layer.

Methods of fabricating an oxide layer on a semiconductor substrate are provided herein. In some embodiments, a method of forming an oxide layer on a semiconductor substrate includes placing a substrate to be oxidized on a substrate support in a vacuum chamber of a plasma reactor, the chamber having an ion generation region remote from the substrate support; introducing a process gas into the chamber, the process gas comprising at least one of hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O)&#x2014;provided at a flow rate ratio of hydrogen (H) to oxygen (O) of up to about 3:1&#x2014;or water vapor (HO vapor); and generating an inductively coupled plasma in the ion generation region of the chamber to form a silicon oxide layer on the substrate.

Methods for low temperature oxidation of a semiconductor device

A method and apparatus for igniting a gas mixture into plasma using capacitive coupling techniques, shielding the plasma and other contents of the plasma reactor from the capacitively-coupled electric field, and maintaining the plasma using inductive coupling are provided. For some embodiments, the amount of capacitive coupling may be controlled after ignition of the plasma. Such techniques are employed in an effort to prevent damage to the surface of a substrate from excessive ion bombardment caused by the highly energized ions and electrons accelerated towards and perpendicular to the substrate surface by the electric field of capacitively-coupled plasma.

Plasma ignition and complete faraday shielding of capacitive coupling for an inductively-coupled plasma

A method of forming a silicide on a silicon layer. First, a monosilane based tungsten-silicide layer is formed on the silicon layer. Next, a dichlorosilane based tungsten-silicide layer is formed on the monosilane based tungsten-silicide layer.

Integrated tungsten-silicide processes

A computer-implemented method of achieving inter-chamber synchronization in a system for integrated circuit manufacturing that includes first and second chambers. In particular, the disclosed method includes terminating a second operation in a second recipe carried out in the second chamber, upon termination of a first operation in a first recipe carried out in the first chamber. Performance advantages realized by the method are illustrated for various cases including 1) a variable-length first operation; 2) a fixed-length first operation; 3) a process first recipe; 4) a conditioning first recipe; 5) a process second recipe; and 6) a conditioning second recipe.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Cory M Czarnik