Tokyo Electron Limited

Masaaki Hagihara

Koichiro Inazawa

Eiichi Nishimura

Vaidyanathan Balasubramaniam

Akiteru Ko

Rie Inazawa, Legal Representative

Wakako Naito

Lee Chen

Kimihiro Higuchi

Masafumi Urakawa

Kouichiro Inazawa

Yoshiki Igarashi

Hiromasa Mochiki

Takashi Enomoto

Arthur H Laflamme, Jr

Yasunori Hatamura

Nobuhiro Iwama

Hiromitsu Kambara

Edward Heller

Ralph Kim

Philip Sansone

Shinji Hamamoto

Mitsuru Ishikawa

A gas injection system includes a diffuser to distribute a process gas in a processing chamber. The gas injection system may be utilized in a polysilicon etching system involving corrosive process gases.

Reduced contaminant gas injection system and method of using

A method for etching a high-k dielectric layer on a substrate in a plasma processing system is described. The high-k dielectric layer can, for example, comprise HfO. The method comprises elevating the temperature of the substrate above 200&#xb0; C. (i.e., typically of order 400&#xb0; C.), introducing a process gas comprising a halogen-containing gas, igniting a plasma from the process gas, and exposing the substrate to the plasma. The process gas can further include a reduction gas in order to improve the etch rate of HfOrelative to Si and SiO.

Method and system for etching a high-k dielectric material

A method is provided for low-pressure plasma ashing to remove photoresist remnants and etch residues that are formed during preceding plasma etching of dielectric layers. The ashing method uses a two-step plasma process involving an oxygen-containing gas, where low or zero bias is applied to the substrate in the first cleaning step to remove significant amount of photoresist remnants and etch residues from the substrate, in addition to etching and removing detrimental fluoro-carbon residues from the chamber surfaces. An increased bias is applied to the substrate in the second cleaning step to remove the remains of the photoresist and etch residues from the substrate. A chamber pressure less than 20 mTorr is utilized in the second cleaning step. The two-step process reduces the memory effect commonly observed in conventional one-step ashing processes. A method of endpoint detection can be used to monitor the ashing process.

Low-pressure removal of photoresist and etch residue

In an etching method for etching an etching target film formed on a substrate placed inside an airtight processing chamberby inducing a processing gas into the processing chamber, the processing gas contains CF, Nand Ar and the etching target film is constituted of an upper organic polysiloxane film and a lower inorganic SiOfilm. The flow rate ratio of CFand Nin the processing gas is essentially set within a range of 1&#x2266;(Nflow rate/CFflow rate)&#x2266;4. If (Nflow rate/CFflow rate) is less than 1, an etching stop occurs and, as a result, deep etching is not achieved. If, on the other hand, (Nflow rate/CFflow rate) is larger than 4, bowing tends to occur and, thus, a good etching shape is not achieved. Accordingly, the flow rate ratio of CFand Nin the processing gas should be set essentially within a range of 1&#x2266;(Nflow rate/CFflow rate)&#x2266;4, to ensure that improvements in both the selection ratio and the etching shape are achieved.

Etching method

A method for etching an organic anti-reflective coating (ARC) layer on a substrate in a plasma processing system comprising: introducing a process gas comprising nitrogen (N), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O); forming a plasma from the process gas; and exposing the substrate to the plasma. The process gas can, for example, constitute an NH/O, N/H/O, N/H/CO, NH/CO, or NH/CO/Obased chemistry. Additionally, the process chemistry can further comprise the addition of helium. The present invention further presents a method for forming a bilayer mask for etching a thin film on a substrate, wherein the method comprises: forming the thin film on the substrate; forming an ARC layer on the thin film; forming a photoresist pattern on the ARC layer; and transferring the photoresist pattern to the ARC layer with an etch process using a process gas comprising nitrogen (N), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O).

Method and apparatus for bilayer photoresist dry development

A method is provided for plasma ashing to remove photoresist remnants and etch residues formed during preceding plasma etching of dielectric layers. The ashing method uses a two-step plasma process involving a hydrogen-containing gas, where low or zero bias is applied to the substrate in the first cleaning step to remove significant amount of photoresist remnants and etch residues from the substrate, in addition to etching and removing detrimental fluorocarbon residues from the chamber surfaces. An increased bias is applied to the substrate in the second cleaning step to remove the remains of the photoresist and etch residues from the substrate. A chamber pressure less than 20 mTorr is utilized in the second cleaning step. The two-step process reduces the memory effect commonly observed in conventional one-step ashing processes. A method of endpoint detection can be used to monitor the ashing process.

A processing gas constituted of CHF, Oand Ar is introduced into a processing chamberof a plasma processing apparatus. The flow rate ratio of the constituents of the processing gas is set at CHF/O/Ar=20 sccm/10 sccm/100 sccm. The pressure inside the processing chamberis set at 50 mTorr. 500 W high frequency power with its frequency set at 13.56 MHz is applied to a lower electrode.on which a wafer W is placed. The processing gas is raised to plasma and thus, an SiNlayerformed on a Cu layeris etched. The exposed Cu layeris hardly oxidized and C and F are not injected into it.

Etching method and plasma processing method

A processing gas constituted of CH F , O and Ar is introduced into a processing chamber of a plasma processing apparatus . The flow rate ratio of the constituents of the processing gas is set at CH F /O /Ar&equals;20 sccm/10 sccm/100 sccm. The pressure inside the processing chamber is set at 50 mTorr. 500 W high frequency power with its frequency set at 13.56 Mz is applied to a lower electrode on which a wafer W is placed. The processing gas is raised to plasma and thus, an SiN layer formed on a Cu layer is etched. The exposed Cu layer is hardly oxidized and C and F are not injected into it.

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Beverly, MA, United States of America

Masaaki Hagihara