Other

Qiqun Zheng

Yan Ye

Chang-Lin Hsieh

Terry Leung

Takehiko Komatsu

The present invention provides a low-k dielectric etching process with high etching selectivities with respect to adjacent layers of other materials, such as an overlying photoresist mask and an underlying barrier/liner layer. The process comprises the step of exposing a portion of the low-k dielectric layer to a plasma of a process gas that includes a fluorocarbon gas, a nitrogen-containing gas, and an inert gas, wherein the volumetric flow ratio of inert:fluorocarbon gas is in the range of 20:1 to 100:1, and the volumetric flow ratio of fluorocarbon:nitrogen-containing gas is selected to provide a low-k dielectric to photoresist etching selectivity ratio greater than about 5:1 and a low-k dielectric etch rate higher than about 4000 &#x212b;/min.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Qiqun Zheng