Novellus Systems Incorporated

Naohiro Shoda

Adrien Lavoie

Bart Jan Van Schravendijk

Michal Danek

John Stephen Drewery

Shankar Swaminathan

Kaihan Abidi Ashtiani

Nerissa Sue Draeger

Sesha Varadarajan

Michael J Wood

Bart K Van Schravendijk

Jason Daejin Park

Lakshminarayana Nittala

A method and apparatus for conformally depositing a dielectric oxide in high aspect ratio gaps in a substrate is disclosed. A substrate is provided with one or more gaps into a reaction chamber where each gap has a depth to width aspect ratio of greater than about 5:1. A first dielectric oxide layer is deposited in the one or more gaps by CFD. A portion of the first dielectric oxide layer is etched using a plasma etch, where etching the portion of the first dielectric oxide layer occurs at a faster rate near a top surface than near a bottom surface of each gap so that the first dielectric oxide layer has a tapered profile from the top surface to the bottom surface of each gap. A second dielectric oxide layer is deposited in the one or more gaps over the first dielectric oxide layer via CFD.

Conformal film deposition for gapfill

Novel gap fill schemes involving depositing both flowable oxide films and high density plasma chemical vapor deposition oxide (HDP oxide) films are provided. According to various embodiments, the flowable oxide films may be used as a sacrificial layer and/or as a material for bottom up gap fill. In certain embodiments, the top surface of the filled gap is an HDP oxide film. The resulting filled gap may be filled only with HDP oxide film or a combination of HDP oxide and flowable oxide films. The methods provide improved top hat reduction and avoid clipping of the structures defining the gaps.

Gap fill integration

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Los Gatos, CA, United States of America

Naohiro Shoda