Applied Materials, Inc.

Meiyee Shek

Li-Qun Xia

Hichem M'Saad

Nagarajan Rajagopalan

Bok Hoen Kim

Thomas E Nowak

Kegang Huang

Kelvin Chan

Mihaela A Balseanu

Alexandros T Demos

Zhenjiang Cui

Kang Sub Yim

Vladimir Zubkov

Annamalai Lakshmanan

Albert Sanghyup Lee

Khaled A Elsheref

Lipan Li

Zhenijiang Cui

Sang M Lee

A method and apparatus for treating a substrate is provided. A porous dielectric layer is formed on the substrate. In some embodiments, the dielectric may be capped by a dense dielectric layer. The dielectric layers are patterned, and a dense dielectric layer deposited conformally over the substrate. The dense conformal dielectric layer seals the pores of the porous dielectric layer against contact with species that may infiltrate the pores. The portion of the dense conformal pore-sealing dielectric layer covering the field region and bottom portions of the pattern openings is removed by directional selective etch.

Prevention and reduction of solvent and solution penetration into porous dielectrics using a thin barrier layer

Unwanted hillocks arising in copper layers due to formation of overlying barrier layers may be significantly reduced by optimizing various process parameters, alone or in combination. A first set of process parameters may be controlled to pre-condition the processing chamber in which the barrier layer is deposited. A second set of process parameters may be controlled to minimize energy to which a copper layer is exposed during removal of CuO prior to barrier deposition. A third set of process parameters may be controlled to minimize the thermal budget after removal of the copper oxide.

Reduction of hillocks prior to dielectric barrier deposition in Cu damascene

A process to form a copper-silicon-nitride layer on a copper surface on a semiconductor wafer is described. The process may include the step of exposing the wafer to a first plasma made from helium. The process may also include exposing the wafer to a second plasma made from a reducing gas, where the second plasma removes copper oxide from the copper surface, and exposing the wafer to silane, where the silane reacts with the copper surface to selectively form copper silicide. The process may further include exposing the wafer to a third plasma made from ammonia and molecular nitrogen to form the copper silicon nitride layer.

Selective copper-silicon-nitride layer formation for an improved dielectric film/copper line interface

A method of forming a layer on a substrate in a chamber, wherein the substrate has at least one formed feature across its surface, is provided. The method includes exposing the substrate to a silicon-containing precursor in the presence of a plasma to deposit a layer, treating the deposited layer with a plasma, and repeating the exposing and treating until a desired thickness of the layer is obtained. The plasma may be generated from an oxygen-containing gas.

Method to improve the step coverage and pattern loading for dielectric films

Methods are provided for processing a substrate for depositing an adhesion layer between a conductive material and a dielectric layer. In one aspect, the invention provides a method for processing a substrate including positioning a substrate having a conductive material disposed thereon, introducing a reducing compound or a silicon based compound, exposing the conductive material to the reducing compound or the silicon based compound, and depositing a silicon carbide layer without breaking vacuum.

Adhesion improvement for low k dielectrics to conductive materials

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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Meiyee Shek