Applied Materials, Inc.

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc.

Applied Mateials, Inc.

Appled Materials, Inc.

Mandar Balasaheb Pandit

Nitin K Ingle

Bok Hoen Kim

Anchuan Wang

Praket Prakash Jha

Ganesh Balasubramanian

Kwangduk Douglas Lee

Xikun Wang

Prashant Kumar Kulshreshtha

Martin Jay Seamons

Ziqing Duan

Sudha S Rathi

Lei Jing

Saptarshi Basu

Deenesh Padhi

Pramit Manna

Mikhail Korolik

Zhenjiang Cui

Derek R Witty

Tom K Choi

Patrick Reilly

Heung Lak Park

Shahid Shaikh

Mang-Mang Ling

Swayambhu Prasad Behera

Tersem Summan

Wei Liu

Christopher Dennis Bencher

Benjamin Colombeau

Naomi Yoshida

Naushad K Variam

Michael Wenyoung Tsiang

Adam Brand

Jie Liu

Man-Ping Cai

Jingmin Leng

Wenhui Li

Nilay A Pradhan

Embodiments of the present technology may include semiconductor processing methods that include depositing a film of semiconductor material on a substrate in a substrate processing chamber. The deposited film may be sampled for defects at greater than or about two non-contiguous regions of the substrate with scanning electron microscopy. The defects that are detected and characterized may include those of a size less than or about 10 nm. The methods may further include calculating a total number of defects in the deposited film based on the sampling for defects in the greater than or about two non-contiguous regions of the substrate. At least one deposition parameter may be adjusted as a result of the calculation. The adjustment to the at least one deposition parameter may reduce the total number of defects in a deposition of the film of semiconductor material.

Systems and methods for analyzing defects in CVD films

Processing methods may be performed to remove unwanted materials from a substrate, such as a native oxide material. The methods may include forming an inert plasma within a processing region of a processing chamber. Effluents of the inert plasma may be utilized to modify a surface of an exposed material on a semiconductor substrate within the processing region of the semiconductor chamber. A remote plasma may be formed from a fluorine-containing precursor to produce plasma effluents. The methods may include flowing the plasma effluents to the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may also include removing the modified surface of the exposed material from the semiconductor substrate.

Systems and methods for anisotropic material breakthrough

Methods may be performed to limit footing, pitch walking, and other alignment issues. The methods may include forming a treatment gas plasma within a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may further include directing effluents of the treatment gas plasma towards a semiconductor substrate within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber, and anisotropically modifying a surface of a first material on the semiconductor substrate with the effluents of the treatment gas plasma. The methods may also include passivating a surface of a second material on the semiconductor substrate with the effluents of the treatment gas plasma. The methods may further include forming a remote fluorine-containing plasma to produce fluorine-containing plasma effluents, and flowing the fluorine-containing plasma effluents to the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may also include selectively removing the modified surface of the first material from the semiconductor substrate.

Systems and methods for material breakthrough

Methods for modulating local stress and overlay error of one or more patterning films may include modulating a gas flow profile of gases introduced into a chamber body, flowing gases within the chamber body toward a substrate, rotating the substrate, and unifying a center-to-edge temperature profile of the substrate by controlling the substrate temperature with a dual zone heater. A chamber for depositing a film may include a chamber body comprising one or more processing regions. The chamber body may include a gas distribution assembly having a blocker plate for delivering gases into the one or more processing regions. The blocker plate may have a first region and a second region, and the first region and second region each may have a plurality of holes. The chamber body may have a dual zone heater.

Gas flow profile modulated control of overlay in plasma CVD films

Processing methods may be performed to limit damage of features of a substrate, such as missing fin damage. The methods may include forming a plasma of an inert precursor within a processing region of a processing chamber. Effluents of the plasma of the inert precursor may be utilized to passivate an exposed region of an oxygen-containing material that extends about a feature formed on a semiconductor substrate. A plasma of a hydrogen-containing precursor may also be formed within the processing region. Effluents of the plasma of the hydrogen-containing precursor may be directed, with DC bias, towards an exposed silicon-containing material on the semiconductor substrate. The methods may also include anisotropically etching the exposed silicon-containing material with the plasma effluents of the hydrogen-containing precursor, where the plasma effluents of the hydrogen-containing precursor selectively etch silicon relative to silicon oxide.

Non-halogen etching of silicon-containing materials

Embodiments of the disclosure relate to deposition of a conformal carbon-based material. In one embodiment, the method comprises depositing a sacrificial dielectric layer over a substrate, forming patterned features on the substrate by removing portions of the sacrificial dielectric layer to expose an upper surface of the substrate, introducing a hydrocarbon source, a plasma-initiating gas, and a dilution gas into the processing chamber, generating a plasma in the processing chamber at a deposition temperature of about 80&#xb0; C. to about 550&#xb0; C. to deposit a conformal amorphous carbon layer on the patterned features and the exposed upper surface of the substrate, selectively removing the amorphous carbon layer from an upper surface of the patterned features and the upper surface of the substrate using an anisotropic etching process to provide the patterned features filled within sidewall spacers, and removing the patterned features formed from the sacrificial dielectric layer.

Ultra-conformal carbon film deposition

Embodiments of the invention relate to deposition of a conformal carbon-based material. In one embodiment, the method comprises depositing a sacrificial dielectric layer with a predetermined thickness over a substrate, forming patterned features on the substrate by removing portions of the sacrificial dielectric layer to expose an upper surface of the substrate, introducing a hydrocarbon source, a plasma-initiating gas, and a dilution gas into the processing chamber, wherein a volumetric flow rate of hydrocarbon source:plasma-initiating gas:dilution gas is in a ratio of 1:0.5:20, generating a plasma at a deposition temperature of about 300 C to about 500 C to deposit a conformal amorphous carbon layer on the patterned features and the exposed upper surface of the substrate, selectively removing the amorphous carbon layer from an upper surface of the patterned features and the upper surface of the substrate, and removing the patterned features.

A method of removing titanium nitride hardmask is described. The hardmask resides above a low-k dielectric layer prior to removal and the low-k dielectric layer retains a relatively low net dielectric constant after the removal process. The low-k dielectric layer may be part of a dual damascene structure having copper at the bottom of the vias. A non-porous carbon layer is deposited prior to the titanium nitride hardmask removal to protect the low-k dielectric layer and the copper. The titanium nitride hardmask is removed with a gas-phase etch using plasma effluents formed in a remote plasma from a chlorine-containing precursor. Plasma effluents within the remote plasma are flowed into a substrate processing region where the plasma effluents react with the titanium nitride.

Chlorine-based hardmask removal

A method of removing titanium nitride hardmask is described. The hardmask resides above a low-k dielectric layer prior to removal and the low-k dielectric layer retains a relatively low net dielectric constant after the removal process. The low-k dielectric layer may be part of a dual damascene structure having copper at the bottom of the vias. A non-porous carbon layer is deposited prior to the titanium nitride hardmask removal to protect the low-k dielectric layer and the copper. The titanium nitride hardmask and the non-porous carbon layer are removed with a gas-phase etch using plasma effluents formed in a remote plasma from a chlorine-containing precursor. Plasma effluents within the remote plasma are flowed into a substrate processing region where the plasma effluents react with the non-porous carbon layer and the titanium nitride.

Titanium nitride removal

A method of removing titanium nitride hardmask is described. The hardmask resides above a low-k dielectric layer prior to removal and the low-k dielectric layer retains a relatively low net dielectric constant after the removal process. The low-k dielectric layer may be part of a dual damascene structure having copper at the bottom of the vias. A non-porous carbon layer is deposited prior to the titanium nitride hardmask removal to protect the low-k dielectric layer and the copper. The titanium nitride hardmask is removed with a gas-phase etch using plasma effluents formed in a remote plasma from a fluorine-containing precursor. Plasma effluents within the remote plasma are flowed into a substrate processing region where the plasma effluents react with the titanium nitride.

Fluorine-based hardmask removal

Embodiments of methods for removing carbon-containing films are provided herein. In some embodiments, a method for removing a carbon-containing layer includes providing an ammonia containing process gas to a process chamber having a substrate with a silicon oxide layer disposed atop the substrate and a carbon-containing layer disposed atop the silicon oxide layer disposed in the process chamber; providing RF power to the process chamber to ignite the ammonia containing process gas to form a plasma; and exposing the substrate to NH and/or NHradicals and hydrogen radicals formed in the plasma to remove the carbon-containing layer.

Methods for removing carbon containing films

Methods of forming self-aligned structures on patterned substrates are described. The methods may be used to form metal lines or vias without the use of a separate photolithography pattern definition operation. Self-aligned contacts may be produced regardless of the presence of spacer elements. The methods include directionally ion-implanting a gapfill portion of a gapfill silicon oxide layer to implant into the gapfill portion without substantially ion-implanting the remainder of the gapfill silicon oxide layer (the sidewalls). Subsequently, a remote plasma is formed using a fluorine-containing precursor to etch the patterned substrate such that the gapfill portions of silicon oxide are selectively etched relative to other exposed portions exposed parallel to the ion implantation direction. Without ion implantation, the etch operation would be isotropic owing to the remote nature of the plasma excitation during the etch process.

Self-aligned process

A method to selectively process a three dimensional device, comprising providing a substrate having a first surface that extends horizontally, the substrate comprising a structure containing a second surface that extends vertically from the first surface; providing a film on the substrate, the film comprising carbon species; and etching a selected portion of the film by exposing the selected portion of the film to an etchant containing hydrogen species, where the etchant excludes oxygen species and fluorine species.

Technique for selectively processing three dimensional device

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Mandar Balasaheb Pandit