Applied Materials, Inc.

Intevac, Inc.

Karthik Janakiraman

Rui Cheng

Krishna Nittala

Diwakar N Kedlaya

Zubin Huang

Ganesh Balasubramanian

Aykut Aydin

Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

Visweswaren Sivaramakrishnan

Abhijit Basu Mallick

Hichem M'Saad

Yi Yang

Dale Robert Du Bois

Deenesh Padhi

Pramit Manna

Thomas E Nowak

Hari K Ponnekanti

Chiu Chan

Tuan Anh Nguyen

Amit Kumar Bansal

Martin Jay Seamons

Sanjeev Baluja

Kelvin Chan

Jianhua Zhou

Kwangduk Douglas Lee

Derek R Witty

Ramprakash Sankarakrishnan

Sudha S Rathi

Sarah Michelle Bobek

Srinivas Gandikota

Mukund Srinivasan

Mohamad A Ayoub

Mark A Fodor

Takehito Koshizawa

Bo Qi

Dale R Dubois

Sanjay G Kamath

Juan Carlos Rocha

Srinivas Guggilla

Ratsamee Limdulpaiboon

Anton Baryshnikov

Nitin K Ingle

Bok Hoen Kim

Susmit Singha Roy

Judy H Huang

Amir Hamed Al-Bayati

Yihong Chen

Joseph F AuBuchon

Kien Nai Chuc

Hang Yu

Gene S Lee

Satish Radhakrishnan

Yung-chen Lin

Eller Y Juco

Dimitri R Kioussis

Venkatanarayana Shankaramurthy

Hidetaka Oshio

Anchuan Wang

Shankar Venkataraman

Shashank Sharma

Jian Li

Zheng Yuan

Alexandros T Demos

Paul Brillhart

Mandyam Sriram

Rong Pan

Terry Bluck

Prashant Kumar Kulshreshtha

Abdul Aziz Khaja

Jingmei Liang

Eswaranand Venkatasubramanian

Vinay K Shah

Praket Prakash Jha

Chen-An Chen

Vinay K Prabhakar

Zihui Li

Umesh M Kelkar

Bhaskar Kumar

Alexander Berger

Venkata Sharat Chandra Parimi

Rajesh Prasad

Vikash Banthia

Edwin C Suarez

Sohyun Park

Sungwon Ha

Kaushik Comandoor Alayavalli

Jinrui Guo

Badri N Ramamurthi

Kirby Hane Floyd

Siu Fai Cheng

Anjana M Patel

Chia-Ling Kao

Fang Ruan

Joseph C Werner

Hyoung-Chan Ha

Dong H Lee

Russell Chin Yee Teo

Jialiang Wang

Dong Hyung Lee

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to processes for forming silicon- and boron-containing films for use in, e.g., spacer-defined patterning applications. In an embodiment, a spacer-defined patterning process is provided. The process includes disposing a substrate in a processing volume of a processing chamber, the substrate having patterned features formed thereon, and flowing a first process gas into the processing volume, the first process gas comprising a silicon-containing species, the silicon-containing species having a higher molecular weight than SiH. The process further includes flowing a second process gas into the processing volume, the second process gas comprising a boron-containing species, and depositing, under deposition conditions, a conformal film on the patterned features, the conformal film comprising silicon and boron.

Processes for depositing SiB films

Exemplary methods of semiconductor processing may include forming a layer of amorphous silicon on a semiconductor substrate. The layer of amorphous silicon may be characterized by a first amount of hydrogen incorporation. The methods may include performing a beamline ion implantation process or plasma doping process on the layer of amorphous silicon. The methods may include removing hydrogen from the layer of amorphous silicon to a second amount of hydrogen incorporation less than the first amount of hydrogen incorporation.

Ion implantation for reduced hydrogen incorporation in amorphous silicon

Capacitor devices containing silicon boron nitride with high boron concentration are provided. In one or more examples, a capacitor device is provided and contains a stopper layer containing silicon boron nitride and disposed on a substrate, a dielectric layer disposed on the stopper layer, vias formed within the dielectric layer and the stopper layer, metal contacts disposed on bottoms of the vias, a nitride barrier layer containing a metal nitride material and disposed on walls of the vias and disposed on the metal contacts, and an oxide layer disposed within the vias on the nitride barrier layer, wherein the oxide layer contains one or more holes or voids formed therein. The silicon boron nitride contains about 18 atomic percent (at %) to about 50 at % of boron.

PECVD of SiBN thin films with low leakage current

Method for depositing amorphous silicon materials are provide and include generating a plasma within a plasma unit in fluid communication with a process chamber and flowing the plasma through an ion suppressor to produce an activated fluid containing reactive species and neutral species. The activated fluid either contains no ions or contains a lower concentration of ions than the plasma. The method further includes flowing the activated fluid into a first inlet of a dual channel showerhead within the process chamber and flowing a silicon precursor into a second inlet of the dual channel showerhead. Thereafter, the method includes flowing a mixture of the activated fluid and the silicon precursor out of the dual channel showerhead and forming an amorphous silicon layer on a substrate disposed in the process chamber.

Remote capacitively coupled plasma deposition of amorphous silicon

A method of processing a substrate is provided including flowing a deposition gas comprising a hydrocarbon compound and a dopant compound into a process volume having a substrate disposed positioned on a substrate support. The process volume is maintained at a pressure of about 0.5 mTorr to about 10 mTorr. The method includes generating a plasma at the substrate by applying a first RF bias to the substrate support to deposit a doped diamond-like carbon film on the substrate. The doped diamond-like carbon film includes about 5 at. % to about 25 at. % of dopant and a first stress property. The method includes annealing the doped diamond-like carbon film at about 220° C. to about 450° C. to form an annealed film. The annealed film includes a second stress property. The second stress property having an absolute value less than or within 10% the first stress property.

Methods of forming thermally stable carbon film

Exemplary processing methods may include depositing a boron-containing material or a silicon-and-boron-containing material on a substrate disposed within a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may include etching portions of the boron-containing material or the silicon-and-boron-containing material with a chlorine-containing precursor to form one or more features in the substrate. The methods may also include removing remaining portions of the boron-containing material or the silicon-and-boron-containing material from the substrate with a fluorine-containing precursor.

Integration processes utilizing boron-doped silicon materials

Methods for depositing film comprising cyclical exposure of a substrate surface to a precursor and a degas environment to remove gas evolved from the film. Some embodiments further comprise the incorporation poisoning the top of a feature to inhibit film growth at the top of the feature. Some embodiments further comprising etching a portion of the film deposited at the top of a feature between cycles to increase gap-fill uniformity.

Deposition of conformal and gap-fill amorphous silicon thin-films

Embodiments of the present technology include semiconductor processing methods to make boron-and-silicon-containing layers that have a changing atomic ratio of boron-to-silicon. The methods may include flowing a silicon-containing precursor into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber, and also flowing a boron-containing precursor and molecular hydrogen (H) into the substrate processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The boron-containing precursor and the Hmay be flowed at a boron-to-hydrogen flow rate ratio. The flow rate of the boron-containing precursor and the Hmay be increased while the boron-to-hydrogen flow rate ratio remains constant during the flow rate increase. The boron-and-silicon-containing layer may be deposited on a substrate, and may be characterized by a continuously increasing ratio of boron-to-silicon from a first surface in contact with the substrate to a second surface of the boron-and-silicon-containing layer furthest from the substrate.

Boron concentration tunability in boron-silicon films

Exemplary methods of semiconductor processing may include providing a silicon-containing precursor to a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. A substrate may be disposed within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may include depositing a silicon-containing material on the substrate. The silicon-containing material may extend within the one or more recessed features along the substrate and a seam or void may be defined by the silicon-containing material within at least one of the one or more recessed features along the substrate. The methods may also include treating the silicon-containing material with a hydrogen-containing gas, such as plasma effluents of the hydrogen-containing gas, which may cause a size of the seam or void to be reduced.

Seam removal in high aspect ratio gap-fill

Aspects generally relate to methods, systems, and apparatus for processing substrates using one or more amorphous carbon hardmask layers. In one aspect, film stress is altered while facilitating enhanced etch selectivity. In one implementation, a method of processing a substrate includes depositing one or more amorphous carbon hardmask layers onto the substrate, and conducting a rapid thermal anneal operation on the substrate after depositing the one or more amorphous carbon hardmask layers. The rapid thermal anneal operation lasts for an anneal time that is 60 seconds or less. The rapid thermal anneal operation includes heating the substrate to an anneal temperature that is within a range of 600 degrees Celsius to 1,000 degrees Celsius. The method includes etching the substrate after conducting the rapid thermal anneal operation.

Methods, systems, and apparatus for processing substrates using one or more amorphous carbon hardmask layers

Exemplary deposition methods may include delivering a boron-containing precursor to a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may include delivering a dopant-containing precursor with the boron-containing precursor. The dopant-containing precursor may include a metal. The methods may include forming a plasma of all precursors within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may include depositing a doped-boron material on a substrate disposed within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The doped-boron material may include greater than or about 80 at. % of boron in the doped-boron material.

Metal-doped boron films

Exemplary semiconductor processing systems include a processing chamber defining a processing region. The semiconductor processing systems may include a foreline coupled with the processing chamber. The foreline may define a fluid conduit. The semiconductor processing systems may include a foreline trap coupled with a distal end of the foreline. The semiconductor processing systems may include a removable insert provided within an interior of the foreline trap. The semiconductor processing systems may include a throttle valve coupled with the foreline trap downstream of the removable insert.

Actively cooled foreline trap to reduce throttle valve drift

Exemplary methods of semiconductor processing may include coupling a fluid conduit within a substrate support in a semiconductor processing chamber to a system foreline. The coupling may vacuum chuck a substrate with the substrate support. The methods may include flowing a gas into the fluid conduit. The methods may include maintaining a pressure between the substrate and the substrate support at a pressure higher than the pressure at the system foreline.

Systems and methods for substrate support temperature control

Processes for depositing sib films

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Karthik Janakiraman