Applied Materials, Inc.

Ju Hyun Oh

Rongjun Wang

Yixiong Yang

Yu Lei

Sahil Patel

Yi Xu

Wei Lei

Aixi Zhang

Xingyao Gao

Shiyu Yue

Xiangjin Xie

Xiaodong Wang

Kevin Kashefi

Tsung-Han Yang

Cong Trinh

Chih-Hsun Hsu

Jiajie Cen

Zhimin Qi

Abulaiti Hairisha

A method of pre-cleaning in a semiconductor structure includes performing a plasma pre-treatment process to remove impurities from a surface of a semiconductor structure comprising a metal layer and a dielectric layer, performing a selective etch process to remove molybdenum oxide from a surface of the metal layer, the selective etch process comprising soaking the semiconductor structure in a precursor including molybdenum chloride (MoCl, MoCl) at a temperature of between 250° C. and 350° C., and performing a post-treatment process to remove chlorine residues and by-products of the selective etch process on the surface of the semiconductor structure.

Metal oxide preclean for bottom-up gapfill in MEOL and BEOL

A method of selective metal removal via gradient oxidation for a gap-fill includes performing process cycles, each process cycle including placing a wafer having a semiconductor structure thereon into a first processing station, the semiconductor structure including a dielectric layer patterned with a feature formed therein and a seed layer formed on sidewalls and a bottom surface of the feature and a top surface of the dielectric layer, performing a reduction process on the wafer in the first processing station, performing a gradient oxidation process on the wafer in the second processing station, performing a gradient etch process on the wafer in the third processing station, and performing the gradient etch process on the wafer in the fourth processing station, wherein the first, second, third, and fourth processing stations are located in an interior volume of a processing chamber.

One chamber multi-station selective metal removal

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ju Hyun Oh