Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Koji Eriguchi

Takayuki Yamada

Noboru Nomura

Masafumi Kubota

Masaaki Niwa

Masanori Okuyama

Masatoshi Arai

Akio Watakabe

Yukiko Hashimoto

Yoshihiro Mori

Bunji Mizuno

Hisashi Ogawa

Takashi Nakabayashi

Toshiki Yabu

Isao Miyanaga

Susumu Matsumoto

Michihiko Takase

Kyoko Egashira

Yukiharu Uraoka

Kazuichiro Itonaga

At least a laminate of a gate insulating filmand a gate electrodeand an active regionare formed on a silicon substrate, and an underlying interlayer insulating filmis further formed. Then, a conductorconnected to the gate electrode, and a conductorthat is a dummy conductor and is connected to the active regionare formed simultaneously on the underlying interlayer insulating film. Thereafter, an interlayer insulating filmis formed on the underlying interlayer insulating filmby a plasma process. At this time, charging current from a plasmais emitted through the conductor, which is a dummy conductor.

Semiconductor device with dummy conductors

A memory cell transistor and a trench capacitor are provided in a memory region, and both transistors of CMOS are provided in a logic circuit region. There are provided a bit line contactand a bit lineextending on an inter-level dielectric. In a memory cell transistor, a source diffusion layeris covered with two dielectric sidewallsandin the memory cell transistor so that no silicide layer is formed on the source diffusion layer. A plate contactis provided to pass through the inter-level dielectricand connect a shield lineto a plate electrode. The shield lineis arranged in the same interconnect layer as the bit line

Semiconductor device

A top surface of a wafer is provided with an n-type source region, an n-type drain region, and an n-type semiconductor region. Dry etching using a plasma is performed with respect to an interlayer insulating film deposited on the wafer to form openings reaching the respective regions, followed by light etching for removing a damaged layer. In this case, exciting light is supplied intermittently to the n-type semiconductor region. The progression of the removal of the damaged layer and the stage of development of a newly damaged layer are sensed by monitoring the change rate of the intensity of reflected probe light in the presence and absence of the exciting light, resulting in the formation of a semiconductor device having low and equal contact resistance. In-line control using optical evaluation enables the implementation of semiconductor devices with excellent and consistent properties.

APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR OPTICAL EVALUATION, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE, METHOD OF CONTROLLING APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE, AND SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE

There is provided a clustered device for manufacturing a semiconductor device in which a cleaning chamber, a rapid thermal processing chamber, an optical measurement chamber, and the like are arranged around a load-lock room. In an optical measurement system, there are disposed an exciting light source, a measuring light source, a light detector, a control/analyze system, and the like. During the formation of an oxide film, for example, a wafer is cleaned in the cleaning chamber and then the amount of a natural oxide film remaining on the wafer or the like is measured by optical modulation reflectance spectroscopy in the optical measurement chamber. Thereafter, the wafer is oxidized in the rapid thermal processing chamber. As a result, the surface of the wafer is prevented from being oxidized on exposure to an atmosphere and the surface state of the wafer can be monitored in the course of sequential process steps. By measuring the thickness of a film on a semiconductor region by optical evaluation in the clustered manufacturing device, the manufacturing process using the clustered device can be controlled.

Device for manufacturing semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same

On a silicon substrate is formed a silicon dioxide film and then hemispherical grains made of silicon, each having an extremely small diameter, are deposited thereon by LPCVD. After annealing the hemispherical grains, the silicon dioxide film is etched using the hemispherical grains as a first dotted mask, thereby forming a second dotted mask composed of the silicon dioxide film. The resulting second dotted mask is used to etch the silicon substrate to a specified depth from the surface thereof, thereby forming an aggregate of semiconductor micro-needles. Since the diameter of each of the semiconductor micro-needles is sufficiently small to cause the quantum size effects as well as has only small size variations, remarkable quantum size effects can be obtained. Therefore, it becomes possible to constitute a semiconductor apparatus with a high information-processing function by using the aggregate of semiconductor micro-needles (quantized region).

Aggregate of semiconductor micro-needles and method of manufacturing the same, and semiconductor apparatus and method of manufacturing the same

A high dielectric film is formed by utilizing atom injection into a film through ion implantation or the like, and heat treatment. For example, an SiO film which is a thermal oxide film is formed on a silicon substrate , and then Zr ions (Zr ) are injected from a plasma into the SiO film . Thereafter, by annealing the SiO film and a Zr injected layer , injected Zr is diffused in the Zr injected layer and then the SiO film and the Zr injected layer are as a whole changed into a high dielectric film of a high dielectric constant formed of Zr&mdash;Si&mdash;O (silicate). By using the high dielectric film as an insulating film for an MISFET, an MISFET having excellent gate leakage properties can be achieved.

Method of forming a high dielectric constant insulating film and method of producing semiconductor device using the same

There is provided a method for evaluating an insulating film entirely provided on a conductor layer for the characteristics or dimensions thereof. A measuring member having conductor bumps arranged thereon to be connected to wires is disposed above the insulating film on the conductor layer. Then, the conductor bumps are pressed against the insulating film with a given pressing force. By applying a voltage (electric stress) between the conductor bumps and the conductor layer, the characteristics including I-V characteristic, gate leakage current, and TDDB or the dimensions including thickness are evaluated.

Method and apparatus for evaluating insulating film

There is provided a clustered device for manufacturing a semiconductor device in which a cleaning chamber, a rapid thermal processing chamber, an optical measurement chamber, and the like are arranged around a load-lock room. In an optical measurement system, there are disposed an exciting light source, a measuring light source, a light detector, a control/analyze system, and the like. During the formation of an oxide film, for example, a wafer is cleaned in the cleaning chamber and then the amount of a natural oxide film remaining on the wafer or the like is measured by optical modulation reflectance spectroscopy in the optical measurement chamber. As a result, the surface state of the wafer can be monitored in the course of sequential process steps. By measuring the thickness of a film on a semiconductor region by optical evaluation in the clustered manufacturing device, the manufacturing process using the clustered device can be controlled.

A particular portion of a damaged layer within a semiconductor substrate, which is likely to affect the performance of resulting semiconductor devices, is distinguished from the other negligible portions thereof and the depth of that non-negligible portion is detected. An Si substrate is placed on a stage, and a mercury electrode, which forms a Schottky barrier with the Si substrate, is brought into contact with the surface of the Si substrate. When a constant current is supplied from a constant current source between the mercury electrode and the Si substrate, charges are trapped at the trap centers in the damaged layer within the Si substrate. As a result, a potential on the conduction band rises near the surface of the Si substrate. And if the voltage between the electrode and the substrate is increased along with the potential rise, a constant current flows. By measuring the variation in the saturated voltage with time using a voltmeter, the defect density can be estimated and the depth of only the particular portion of the damaged layer, having impact on the resulting devices, can be detected.

Method for examining semiconductor substrate, and method for controlling fabrication process of semiconductor devices

There is provided a clustered device for manufacturing a semiconductor device in which a cleaning chamber, a rapid thermal processing chamber, an optical measurement chamber, and the like are arranged around a load-lock room. In an optical measurement system, there are disposed an exciting light source, a measuring light source, a light detector, a control/analyze system, and the like. During the formation of an oxide film, for example, a wafer is cleaned in the cleaning chamber and then the amount of a natural oxide film remaining on the wafer or the like is measured by optical modulation reflectance spectroscopy in the optical measurement chamber. Thereafter, the wafer is oxidized in the rapid thermal processing chamber. As a result, the surface of the wafer is prevented from being oxidized on exposure to an atmosphere and the surface state of the wafer can be monitored in the course of a sequential process steps. By measuring the thickness of a film on a semiconductor region by optical evaluation in the clustered manufacturing device, the manufacturing process using the clustered device can be controlled.

A polysilicon layer is formed on a silicon substrate. A resist film, which has a pattern of remaining portions and opening portions, is formed on the polysilicon layer. The silicon substrate is placed in a reaction chamber, an etch gas is introduced into the reaction chamber, and the introduced gas becomes ionized whereupon dry etching is performed to selectively etch away the polysilicon layer to form projections underneath the remaining portions and recesses underneath the opening portions. By controlling the pressure of the etch gas to fall within a range above 5 millitorr and the flow rate of the etch gas to fall within a range above 100 sccm, both the rate that an etch product is discharged above a recess and the rate that an etch product sticks to a projection sidewall are controlled. Such arrangement not only reduces a critical dimension difference (i.e., a difference in lateral dimension between the bottom of an isolated projection and a corresponding remaining portion of the resist film), but also cancels variations in the critical dimension difference between the isolated projection and the closely spaced projection.

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Osaka, Japan

Koji Eriguchi