Applied Materials, Inc.

Marlon E Menezes

Christopher Dennis Bencher

Vijay Parihar

Srinivas D Nemani

Jeffrey C Munro

Rajesh Kanuri

Xiaolin C Chen

DongQing Li

Young Seen Lee

A plasma enhanced physical vapor deposition process deposits an amorphous carbon layer on an ion-implanted wafer for use in dynamic surface annealing of the wafer with an intense line beam of a laser wavelength. The deposition process is carried out at a wafer temperature below the dopant clustering threshold temperature, and includes introducing the wafer into a chamber having a carbon-containing target overlying the wafer, and furnishing a carrier gas into the chamber. The process further includes generating a wafer bias voltage and applying target source power to the carbon-containing target sufficient to produce ion bombardment of the carbon-containing target. The wafer bias voltage is set to a level at which the amorphous carbon layer that is deposited has a desired extinction coefficient at the laser wavelength.

Low temperature process for depositing a high extinction coefficient non-peeling optical absorber for a scanning laser surface anneal of implanted dopants

Methods are disclosed for activating dopants in a doped semiconductor substrate. A carbon precursor is flowed into a substrate processing chamber within which the doped semiconductor substrate is disposed. A plasma is formed from the carbon precursor in the substrate processing chamber. A carbon film is deposited over the substrate with the plasma. A temperature of the substrate is maintained while depositing the carbon film less than 500&#xb0; C. The deposited carbon film is exposed to electromagnetic radiation for a period less than 10 ms, and has an extinction coefficient greater than 0.3 at a wavelength comprised by the electromagnetic radiation.

Dopant activation in doped semiconductor substrates

Methods of forming a dielectric layer where the tensile stress of the layer is increased by a plasma treatment at an elevated position are described. In one embodiment, oxide and nitride layers are deposited on a substrate and patterned to form an opening. A trench is etched into the substrate. The substrate is transferred into a chamber suitable for dielectric deposition. A dielectric layer is deposited over the substrate, filling the trench and covering mesa regions adjacent to the trench. The substrate is raised to an elevated position above the substrate support and exposed to a plasma which increases the tensile stress of the substrate. The substrate is removed from the dielectric deposition chamber, and portions of the dielectric layer are removed so that the dielectric layer is even with the topmost portion of the nitride layer. The nitride and pad oxide layers are removed to form the STI structure.

[object Object]

A plasma enhanced physical vapor deposition process deposits an amorphous carbon layer on an ion-implanted wafer for use in dynamic surface annealing of the wafer with an intense line beam of a laser wavelength. The deposition process is carried out at a wafer temperature below the dopant clustering threshold temperature, and includes introducing the wafer into a chamber and furnishing a hydrocarbon process gas into the chamber, preferably propylene (C3H6) or toluene (C7H8) or acetylene (C2H2) or a mixture of acetylene and methane (C2H4). The process further includes inductively coupling RF plasma source power into the chamber while and applying RF plasma bias power to the wafer. The wafer bias voltage is set to a level at which the amorphous carbon layer that is deposited has a desired stress (compressive or tensile). We have discovered that at a wafer temperature less than or equal to 475 degrees C., total RF plasma source power of 4000 Watts at about 2 MHz, RF plasma bias power of 2000-3000 Watts at about 13.56 MHz and a chamber pressure in a range of 3 mTorr to 2 Torr, the deposited amorphous carbon layer has a surprising combination of high absorption and high strength and excellent step coverage.

Dynamic surface annealing of implanted dopants with low temperature HDPCVD process for depositing a high extinction coefficient optical absorber layer

A plasma treatment process for increasing the tensile stress of a silicon wafer is described. Following deposition of a dielectric layer on a substrate, the substrate is lifted to an elevated position above the substrate receiving surface and exposed to a plasma treatment process which treats both the top and bottom surface of the wafer and increases the tensile stress of the deposited layer. Another embodiment of the invention involves biasing of the substrate prior to plasma treatment to bombard the wafer with plasma ions and raise the temperature of the substrate. In another embodiment of the invention, a two-step plasma treatment process can be used where the substrate is first exposed to a plasma at a processing position directly after deposition, and then raised to an elevated position where both the top and bottom of the wafer are exposed to the plasma.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Marlon E Menezes