International Business Machines Corporation

Julian Juu-Chuan Hsieh

James Gardner Ryan

Donald M Kenney

Gary W Rubloff

Thomas John Licata

An apparatus and method provide deposition on a surface by angled sputtering using a collimation grid having angled vanes which limit the distribution of trajectories of particles in at least one coordinate direction around a central axis oriented at an angle of less than 90.degree. to said surface; resulting in improved uniformity of deposition and/or selective favoring of deposition on surfaces at a high angle to the deposition surface (e.g. sidewalls). Substantially parallel orientation and uniform spacing of the sputtering target and deposition surface provides good uniformity of results over the deposition surface. The angled trajectories of sputtered particles provides improved deposition on sides of upstanding mandrel features and filling of recessed features of high aspect ratio, especially when the collimation grid is rotated about an axis generally perpendicular to the deposition surface. Angled, collimated deposition also allows for control of deposition at potentially sub-lithographic feature sizes by using portions of features as a mask with deposition being performed only on remaining exposed portions of features or deposition on selected sides of a mandrel feature. Sidewall image transfer techniques may thus be extended to non-symmetrical and singular features. At very shallow angles to the deposition surface, deposited material has a fibrous texture with greatly increased effective surface area.

Method for selective material deposition on one side of raised or

System and method for controlling the thickness profile of deposited thin film layers over three-dimensional topography are disclosed, wherein low pressure chemical vapor deposition conditions are employed with the reactant beam collimated and chosen to impinge at a specific angle onto the surface, such that the reactive sticking coefficient s.sub.r with the deposition surface is &lt;1. Compared with conventional approaches, this method permits new shapes of the deposited thin film layer to be achieved over topography (such as trenches), including (i) tapered rather than re-entrant shapes (i.e., thicker at bottom rather than at top), (ii) enhanced sidewall and/or bottom coverage of trench structures (cf. the top surface), (iii) voidless, seamless filling of trench or via structures even at high aspect ratio (depth/width), and (iv) asymmetric sidewall coverage.

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Bronx, NY, United States of America

Julian Juu-Chuan Hsieh