Lam Research Corporation

Chemtrace Corporation

Applied Materials, Inc.

Balazs Analytical Laboratory

Quantum Global Technologies LLC

Samantha SiamHwa Tan

Yang Pan

Wenbing Yang

Keren Jacobs Kanarik

Jeffrey S Marks

Thorsten B Lill

Taeseung Kim

Jengyi Yu

Richard Stephan Wise

Alexander Kabansky

Reza Arghavani

Dennis Michael Hausmann

Nader Shamma

Daniel Peter

Adrien Lavoie

Harmeet Singh

Shih-Ked Lee

Boris Volosskiy

Tamal Mukherjee

Shankar Swaminathan

Bhadri N Varadarajan

Meihua Shen

Jun Qian

Ananda K Banerji

Karthik Subramanian Colinjivadi

Eric A Hudson

Michal Danek

Artur Kolics

Ning Chen

Anand Chandrashekar

Hui-Jung Wu

Jun Xue

Yongsik Yu

Chiukin Steven Lai

Praveen Nalla

Seongjun Heo

Michael J Wood

Novy Sastrawati Tjokro

Teh-Tien Su

Younghee Lee

Dianne M Dougherty

Mohand Brouri

Sivananda K Kanakasabapathy

Bart Jan Van Schravendijk

George Matamis

David Wingto Cheung

Raashina Humayun

Jon Henri

Girish Anant Dixit

Patrick A Van Cleemput

Juwen Gao

Mark Naoshi Kawaguchi

Gerardo Delgadino

Shashank C Deshmukh

Tom A Kamp

Akhil N Singhal

Kapu Sirish Reddy

Timothy William Weidman

Yu Jiang

Da Li

Jialing Yang

Yiwen Fan

Awnish Gupta

Kirk J Ostrowski

Nathan Musselwhite

Ran Lin

Jiansheng Wang

Mary Anne Manumpil

Ge Yuan

Katie Lynn Nardi

Francis Sloan Roberts

Kashish Sharma

Siva Krishnan Kanakasabapathy

Chenghao Wu

Kazuo Nojiri

Kevin Li Gu

Wook Choi

Huifeng Zheng

Todd Shroeder

Tomihito Ohba

Nikkon Ghosh

Yuanhui Li

Fabricating a semiconductor substrate by (a) vertical etching a feature having sidewalls and a depth into one or more layers formed on the semiconductor substrate and (b) depositing an amorphous carbon liner onto the sidewalls of the feature. Steps (a) and optionally (b) are iterated until the vertical etch feature has reached a desired depth. With each iteration of (a), the feature is vertical etched deeper into the one or more layers, while the amorphous carbon liner resists lateral etching of the sidewalls of the feature. With each optional iteration of (b), the deposited amorphous carbon liner on the sidewalls of the feature is replenished.

Carbon based depositions used for critical dimension control during high aspect ratio feature etches and for forming protective layers

Dry development of resists can be useful, for example, to form a patterning mask in the context of high-resolution patterning. Dry development may be advantageously accomplished by a method of processing a semiconductor substrate including providing in a process chamber a photopatterned resist on a substrate layer on a semiconductor substrate, and dry developing the photopatterned resist by removing either an exposed portion or an unexposed portion of the resist by a dry development process comprising exposure to a chemical compound to form a resist mask. The resist may be an EUV-sensitive organo-metal oxide or organo-metal-containing thin film EUV resist.

Dry development of resists

A method for selectively etching a stack with respect to a mask is provided. An atomic layer etch is provided to at least partially etch the stack, wherein the atomic layer etch forms at least some residue. An ion beam is provided to etch the stack, wherein the ion beam etch removes at least some of the residue from the atomic layer etch.

Atomic layer etch and ion beam etch patterning

A method for depositing a carbon ashable hard mask layer on a substrate includes a) arranging a substrate in a processing chamber; b) setting chamber pressure in a predetermined pressure range; c) setting a substrate temperature in a predetermined temperature range from −20° C. to 200° C.; d) supplying a gas mixture including hydrocarbon precursor and one or more other gases; and e) striking plasma by supplying RF plasma power for a first predetermined period to deposit a carbon ashable hard mask layer on the substrate.

High etch selectivity, low stress ashable carbon hard mask

A method for depositing carbon on a substrate in a processing chamber includes arranging the substrate on a substrate support in the processing chamber. The substrate includes a carbon film having a first thickness formed on at least one underlying layer of the substrate. The method further includes performing a first etching step to etch the substrate to form features on the substrate, remove portions of the carbon film, and decrease the first thickness of the carbon film, selectively depositing carbon onto remaining portions of the carbon film, and performing at least one second etching step to etch the substrate to complete the forming of the features on the substrate.

Selective carbon deposition

A method for selectively etching a silicon oxide region with respect to a lower oxygen silicon containing region is provided. A sacrificial mask selectively deposited on the lower oxygen silicon containing region with respect to the silicon oxide region. An atomic layer etch selectively etches the silicon oxide region with respect to the sacrificial mask on the lower oxygen silicon containing region.

Selective etch using a sacrificial mask

A method for atomic layer etching a metal containing layer is provided. At least a region of a surface of the metal containing layer is modified to form a modified metal containing region by exposing a surface of the metal containing layer to a modification gas, wherein adjacent to the modified metal containing region remains an unmodified metal containing region. The modified metal containing region is selectively removed with respect to the unmodified metal containing region by exposing the surface of the metal containing layer to an inert bombardment plasma generated from an inert gas.

Atomic layer etching for subtractive metal etch

A method for cleaning surfaces of a substrate processing chamber includes a) supplying a first gas selected from a group consisting of silicon tetrachloride (SiCl), carbon tetrachloride (CCl), a hydrocarbon (CHwhere x and y are integers) and molecular chlorine (Cl), boron trichloride (BCl), and thionyl chloride (SOCl); b) striking plasma in the substrate processing chamber to etch the surfaces of the substrate processing chamber; c) extinguishing the plasma and evacuating the substrate processing chamber; d) supplying a second gas including fluorine species; e) striking plasma in the substrate processing chamber to etch the surfaces of the substrate processing chamber; and f) extinguishing the plasma and evacuating the substrate processing chamber.

Removing metal contamination from surfaces of a processing chamber

Selective deposition of a sacrificial material on a semiconductor substrate, the substrate having a surface with a plurality of regions of substrate materials having different selectivities for the sacrificial material, may be conducted such that substantial deposition of the sacrificial material occurs on a first region of the substrate surface, and no substantial deposition occurs on a second region of the substrate surface. Deposition of a non-sacrificial material may then be conducted on the substrate, such that substantial deposition of the non-sacrificial material occurs on the second region and no substantial deposition of the non-sacrificial material occurs on the first region. The sacrificial material may then be removed such that net deposition of the non-sacrificial material occurs substantially only on the second region.

Selective processing with etch residue-based inhibitors

Various embodiments herein relate to methods, apparatus, and systems for etching a feature in a substrate. Typically the feature is etched in a dielectric-containing stack. The etching process involves cyclically etching the feature and depositing a protective film on sidewalls of the partially etched feature. These stages are repeated until the feature reaches its final depth. The protective film may have a particular composition, for example including at least one of a tungsten carbonitride, a tungsten sulfide, tin, a tin-containing compound, molybdenum, a molybdenum-containing compound, a ruthenium carbonitride, a ruthenium sulfide, an aluminum carbonitride, an aluminum sulfide, zirconium, and a zirconium-containing compound. A number of optional steps may be taken including, for example, doping the mask layer, pre-treating the substrate prior to deposition, removing the protective film from the sidewalls, and oxidizing any remaining protective film.

Metal-containing passivation for high aspect ratio etch

A method for etching features in a stack below a patterned mask in an etch chamber is provided. The stack is cooled with a coolant with a coolant temperature below &#x2212;20&#xb0; C. An etch gas is flowed into the etch chamber. A plasma is generated from the etch gas. Features are selectively etched into the stack with respect to the patterned mask.

Plasma etching chemistries of high aspect ratio features in dielectrics

A method for selectively etching layers of a first material with respect to layers of a second material in a stack is provided. The layers of the first material are partially etched with respect to the layers of the second material. A deposition layer is selectively deposited on the stack, wherein portions of the deposition layer covering the layers of the second material are thicker than portions covering the layers of the first material, the selective depositing comprising providing a first reactant, purging some of the first reactant, wherein some undeposited first reactant is not purged, and providing a second reactant, wherein the undeposited first reactant combines with the second reactant and selectively deposits on the layers of the second material with respect to the layers of the first material. The layers of the first material are selectively etched with respect to the layers of the second material.

Selectively etching for nanowires

Etching a refractory metal or other high surface binding energy material on a substrate can maintain or increase the smoothness of the metal/high EO surface, in some cases produce extreme smoothing. A substrate having an exposed refractory metal/high EO surface is provided. The refractory metal/high EO surface is exposed to a modification gas to modify the surface and form a modified refractory metal/high EO surface. The modified refractory metal/high EO surface is exposed to an energetic particle to preferentially remove the modified refractory metal/high EO surface relative to an underlying unmodified refractory metal/high EO surface such that the exposed refractory metal/high EO surface after removing the modified refractory metal/high EO surface is as smooth or smoother than the substrate surface before exposing the substrate surface to the modification gas.

Atomic layer etching and smoothing of refractory metals and other high surface binding energy materials

A method for selectively etching a first region of a structure with respect to a second region of the structure is provided. The method comprises at least one cycle. Each cycle comprises selectively depositing an inhibitor layer on the first region of the structure, providing an atomic layer deposition over the structure, wherein the atomic layer deposition selectively deposits a mask on the second region of the structure with respect to the inhibitor layer, and selectively etching the first region of the structure with respect to the mask. The selectively depositing an inhibitor layer on the first region of the structure comprises providing an inhibitor layer gas and forming the inhibitor layer gas into inhibitor layer radicals, wherein the inhibitor layer radicals selectively deposit on the first region of the structure with respect to the second region of the structure.

Deposition of self assembled monolayer for enabling selective deposition and etch

Tin oxide films are used as mandrels in semiconductor device manufacturing. In one implementation the process starts by providing a substrate having a plurality of protruding tin oxide features (mandrels) residing on an exposed etch stop layer. Next, a conformal layer of spacer material is formed both on the horizontal surfaces and on the sidewalls of the mandrels. The spacer material is then removed from the horizontal surfaces exposing the tin oxide material of the mandrels, without fully removing the spacer material residing at the sidewalls of the mandrel (e.g., leaving at least 50%, such as at least 90% of initial height at the sidewall). Next, mandrels are selectively removed (e.g., using hydrogen-based etch chemistry), while leaving the spacer material that resided at the sidewalls of the mandrels. The resulting spacers can be used for patterning the etch stop layer and underlying layers.

Tin oxide mandrels in patterning

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Samantha SiamHwa Tan