Globalfoundries Inc.

Itasham Hussain

Fabian Koehler

Bianca Antonioli-Trepte

Dina Triyoso

Sergej Mutas

When forming spacer structures enclosing a gate electrode structure of a transistor, a common problem is given by the thickness variation of the spacer structure obtained as a result of a first deposition process performed in a first chamber and a second, subsequent process performed in a second chamber. The present disclosure provides a method for forming spacers of a well-defined thickness. The method relies on a single deposition step performed by means of an atomic layer deposition. The deposition is performed in two stages performed at different temperatures.

Gate encapsulation achieved by single-step deposition

A method of forming a material layer on a substrate is provided. The method is based on a combination of an overheating before deposition and a cooling of the reaction chamber during a second deposition stage. The second deposition stage follows a first deposition stage preferably carried out at a predetermined temperature. This combination makes it possible to compensate for the reactant gas depletion across wafer throughout the whole deposition process. The method can be conveniently used when growing a nitride layer to be used as a hard mask during shallow trench isolation (STI) region formation.

Film deposition with improved in-wafer uniformity

Methods for fabricating integrated circuits are provided. In an embodiment, a method for fabricating an integrated circuit includes providing a semiconductor substrate having a gate structure. An atomic layer deposition (ALD) process is performed to deposit a spacer around the gate structure. The ALD process includes alternating flowing ionized radicals of a first precursor across the semiconductor substrate and flowing a chlorosilane precursor across the semiconductor substrate to deposit the spacer.

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Dresden, Germany

Itasham Hussain