At&t Bell Laboratories

American Telephone & Telegraph Co., At&t Bell Laboratories

John A Mucha

Daniel L Flamm

Dale E Ibbotson

Peter R Bossard

Vincent Michael Donnelly, Jr

Chorng-Ping Chang

Joel M Cook

Silicon nitride regions suitable for applications such as capping layers in integrated circuit fabrication are produced by an advantageous plasma deposition process. This process utilizes a combination of gases, including a silicon-containing gas, a nitrogen-containing gas, a fluorine-containing gas, and a hydrogen-containing gas. Silicon nitride having a low density of defect states and thus having excellent dielectric properties is produced.

Devices and process for producing devices containing silicon nitride

The accuracy of measurements made to determine the extent of water vapor trapped upon encapsulation of an electronic device is significantly enhanced by carefully controlling the measurement technique employed. In particular, the encapsulant is generally punctured and the water vapor thus released is monitored. It has been found that to obtain an accurate measurement of the magnitude of the water vapor released, this measurement must be made within 0.1 second of the time of encapsulant punctured and released into a glass system. By using an absorption technique with suitable electronics, this time requirement is fulfilled and significantly more accurate quantitative measurements of entrapped water vapor are obtained.

Detection of water entrapped in electronic components

A highly selective--greater than 100 to 1--etch for silicon, tantalum, tantalum silicide and tantalum nitride is achieved by using polyatomic halogen fluorides. The selectivity is achievable without employing plasmas or wet etching.

Etching techniques

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Madison, NJ, United States of America

John A Mucha