Lam Research Corporation

Fengyuan Lai

Bo Gong

Guangbi Yuan

Chen-Hua Hsu

Anand Chandrashekar

Leonard Wai Fung Kho

Curtis Warren Bailey

Huatan Qiu

Geoffrey Hohn

Gang Liu

Damodar Rajaram Shanbhag

Andrew H Breninger

Tony Kaushal

Krishna Birru

Rohit Khare

Thadeous Bamford

William Schlosser

Bhadri N Varadarajan

Zhe Gui

Forming a protective coating ex situ in an atomic layer deposition process to coat one or more chamber components subsequently installed in a reaction chamber provides a number of benefits over more conventional coating methods such as in situ deposition of an undercoat. In certain cases the protective coating may have a particular composition such as aluminum oxide, aluminum fluoride, aluminum nitride, yttrium oxide, and/or yttrium fluoride. The protective coating may help reduce contamination on wafers processed using the coated chamber component. Further, the protective coating may act to stabilize the processing conditions within the reaction chamber, thereby achieving very stable/uniform processing results over the course of processing many batches of wafers, and minimizing radical loss. Also described are a number of techniques that may be used to restore the protective coating after the coated chamber component is used to process semiconductor wafers.

Ex situ coating of chamber components for semiconductor processing

In some examples, a method for conditioning a wafer processing chamber comprises setting a pressure in the chamber to a predetermined pressure range, setting a temperature of the chamber to a predetermined temperature, and supplying a process gas mixture to a gas distribution device within the chamber. A plasma is struck within the chamber and a condition in the chamber is monitored. Based on a detection of the monitored condition meeting or transgressing a threshold value, a chamber conditioning operation is implemented. The chamber conditioning operation may include depositing a preconditioning film onto an internal surface of the chamber, depositing a silicon oxycarbide (SiCO) film onto the preconditioning film, and depositing a protective layer onto the SiCO film.

Oxidation resistant protective layer in chamber conditioning

Provided are methods and apparatuses for depositing a graded or multi-layered silicon carbide film using remote plasma. A graded or multi-layered silicon carbide film can be formed under process conditions that provide one or more organosilicon precursors onto a substrate in a reaction chamber. Radicals of source gas in a substantially low energy state, such as radicals of hydrogen in the ground state, are provided from a remote plasma source into reaction chamber. In addition, co-reactant gas is flowed towards the reaction chamber. In some implementations, radicals of the co-reactant gas are provided from the remote plasma source into the reaction chamber. A flow rate of the co-reactant gas can be changed over time, incrementally or gradually, to form a multi-layered silicon carbide film or a graded silicon carbide film having a composition gradient from a first surface to a second surface of the graded silicon carbide film.

Remote plasma based deposition of graded or multi-layered silicon carbide film

Provided are methods and apparatuses for densifying a silicon carbide film using remote plasma treatment. Operations of remote plasma deposition and remote plasma treatment of the silicon carbide film alternatingly occur to control film density. A first thickness of silicon carbide film is deposited followed by a remote plasma treatment, and then a second thickness of silicon carbide film is deposited followed by another remote plasma treatment. The remote plasma treatment can flow radicals of source gas in a substantially low energy state, such as radicals of hydrogen in a ground state, towards silicon carbide film deposited on a substrate. The radicals of source gas in the substantially low energy state promote cross-linking and film densification in the silicon carbide film.

Densification of silicon carbide film using remote plasma treatment

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Fengyuan Lai