Applied Materials, Inc.

Sanjay G Kamath

Deenesh Padhi

Hang Yu

Abhijit Basu Mallick

Young Seen Lee

Madhu Santosh Kumar Mutyala

Karthik Janakiraman

Hemant P Mungekar

Vinayak Veer Vats

Srinivas Gandikota

Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

Kelvin Chan

Soonam Park

Susmit Singha Roy

Xinhai Han

Dmitry A Dzilno

Zhong Qiang Hua

Siqing Lu

Chuanxi Yang

Hien Minh Le

Changling Li

Farhan Ahmad

Euhngi Lee

Ellie Y Yieh

Philip Allan Kraus

Mark Joseph Saly

Jian Li

Mihaela A Balseanu

Rui Cheng

Thai Cheng Chua

Kwangduk Douglas Lee

Paul Brillhart

Timothy J Miller

Jingmei Liang

Zheng John Ye

Praket Prakash Jha

Lakmal Charidu Kalutarage

Diwakar N Kedlaya

Zubin Huang

Edward P Hammond

Sidharth Bhatia

Mayur G Kulkarni

Kyu-Ha Shim

Sudhir R Gondhalekar

Daemian Raj Benjamin Raj

Shailendra Srivastava

Hien-Minh Huu Le

Anjana M Patel

Jun Seok Lee

Kiran V Thadani

William John Durand

Walter Zygmunt

Jung Chan Lee

Allison Yau

Kristopher R Enslow

Heng-Cheng Pai

Deven Matthew Raj Mittal

Chuan Ying Wang

Arkajit Roy Barman

Pramod Nambiar

Abhigyan Keshri

Zongbin Wang

Akshay Gunaji

Sungho Jo

Mun Kyu Park

Rana Howlader

Garrett Ho-Yee Sin

Sandeep Bindgi

Yong Xiang Lim

Yubin Zhang

Honggun Kim

Gregory M Amico

Agnieszka Jakubowicz

Rionard Purnawan

Yu Yang

Capacitor devices containing silicon boron nitride with high boron concentration are provided. In one or more examples, a capacitor device is provided and contains a stopper layer containing silicon boron nitride and disposed on a substrate, a dielectric layer disposed on the stopper layer, vias formed within the dielectric layer and the stopper layer, metal contacts disposed on bottoms of the vias, a nitride barrier layer containing a metal nitride material and disposed on walls of the vias and disposed on the metal contacts, and an oxide layer disposed within the vias on the nitride barrier layer, wherein the oxide layer contains one or more holes or voids formed therein. The silicon boron nitride contains about 18 atomic percent (at %) to about 50 at % of boron.

PECVD of SiBN thin films with low leakage current

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to methods for gap fill deposition and film densification on microelectronic devices. The method includes forming an oxide layer containing silicon oxide and having an initial wet etch rate (WER) over features disposed on the substrate, and exposing the oxide layer to a first plasma treatment to produce a treated oxide layer. The first plasma treatment includes generating a first plasma by a first RF source and directing the first plasma to the oxide layer by a DC bias. The method also includes exposing the treated oxide layer to a second plasma treatment to produce a densified oxide layer. The second plasma treatment includes generating a second plasma by top and side RF sources and directing the second plasma to the treated oxide layer without a bias. The densified oxide layer has a final WER of less than one-half of the initial WER.

Plasma treatment process to densify oxide layers

Exemplary semiconductor processing systems include a processing chamber, a power supply, and a chuck disposed at least partially within the processing chamber. The chuck includes a chuck body defining a vacuum port. The chuck also includes first and second coplanar electrodes embedded in the chuck body and connected to the power supply. In some examples, coplanar electrodes include concentric electrodes defining a concentric gap in between. Exemplary semiconductor processing methods may include activating the power supply for the electrostatic chuck to secure a semiconductor substrate on the body of the chuck and/or activating the vacuum port defined by the body of the electrostatic chuck. Some processing can be carried out at increased pressure, while other processing can be carried out at reduced pressure with increased chucking voltage.

Multi-pressure bipolar electrostatic chucking

Implementations described herein generally relate to a method for forming a metal layer and to a method for forming an oxide layer on the metal layer. In one implementation, the metal layer is formed on a seed layer, and the seed layer helps the metal in the metal layer nucleate with small grain size without affecting the conductivity of the metal layer. The metal layer may be formed using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and nitrogen gas may be flowed into the processing chamber along with the precursor gases. In another implementation, a barrier layer is formed on the metal layer in order to prevent the metal layer from being oxidized during subsequent oxide layer deposition process. In another implementation, the metal layer is treated prior to the deposition of the oxide layer in order to prevent the metal layer from being oxidized.

CVD based oxide-metal multi structure for 3D NAND memory devices

Exemplary deposition methods may include forming a plasma of a silicon-containing precursor and at least one additional precursor within a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The processing region may house a semiconductor substrate on a substrate support. The methods may include depositing material on the semiconductor substrate to a target thickness. The methods may include halting delivery of the silicon-containing precursor while maintaining the plasma with the one or more precursors. The methods may include purging the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber.

Methods for pressure ramped plasma purge

Exemplary semiconductor processing systems may include a processing chamber and an electrostatic chuck disposed at least partially within the processing chamber. The electrostatic chuck may include at least one electrode and a heater. A semiconductor processing system may include a power supply to provide a signal to the electrode to provide electrostatic force to secure a substrate to the electrostatic chuck. The system may also include a filter communicatively coupled between the power supply and the electrode. The filter is configured to remove or reduce noise introduced into the chucking signal by operating the heater while the electrostatic force on the substrate is maintained. The filter may include active circuitry, passive circuitry, or both, and may include an adjustment circuit to set the gain of the filter so that an output signal level from the filter corresponds to an input signal level for the filter.

Power supply signal conditioning for an electrostatic chuck

Embodiments described herein relate to gas line systems with a multichannel splitter spool. In these embodiments, the gas line systems will include a first gas line that is configured to supply a first gas. The first gas line is coupled to a multichannel splitter spool with a plurality of second gas lines into which the first gas flows. Each gas line of the plurality of second gas lines will have a smaller volume than the volume of the first gas line. The smaller second gas lines will be wrapped by a heater jacket. Due to the smaller volume of the second gas lines, when the first gas is flowed through the second gas lines, the heater jacket will sufficiently heat the first gas, eliminating the condensation induced particle defects that occur in conventional gas line systems when the first gas meets with a second gas in the gas line system.

Multi channel splitter spool

Exemplary methods of semiconductor processing may include flowing a silicon-containing precursor, a nitrogen-containing precursor, and diatomic hydrogen into a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. A substrate may be housed within the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber. The methods may also include forming a plasma of the silicon-containing precursor, the nitrogen-containing precursor, and the diatomic hydrogen. The plasma may be formed at a frequency above 15 MHz. The methods may also include depositing a silicon nitride material on the substrate.

Systems and methods for depositing high density and high tensile stress films

Exemplary deposition methods may include forming a plasma of an oxygen-containing precursor within a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The processing region may house a semiconductor substrate on a substrate support. The methods may include, while maintaining the plasma of the oxygen-containing precursor, flowing a silicon-containing precursor into the processing region of the semiconductor processing chamber at a first flow rate. The methods may include ramping the first flow rate of the silicon-containing precursor over a period of time to a second flow rate greater than the first flow rate. The methods may include depositing a silicon-containing material on the semiconductor substrate.

Initiation modulation for plasma deposition

Exemplary semiconductor processing chambers may include a pedestal comprising a platen configured to support a semiconductor substrate across a surface of the platen. The chambers may include a first conductive mesh incorporated within the platen and configured to operate as a first chucking mesh. The first conductive mesh may extend radially across the platen. The chambers may include a second conductive mesh incorporated within the platen and configured to operate as a second chucking mesh. The second conductive mesh may be characterized by an annular shape. The second conductive mesh may be disposed between the first conductive mesh and the surface of the platen.

Multi zone electrostatic chuck

Embodiments disclosed herein include methods of forming high quality silicon nitride films. In an embodiment, a method of depositing a film on a substrate may comprise forming a silicon nitride film over a surface of the substrate in a first processing volume with a deposition process, and treating the silicon nitride film in a second processing volume, wherein treating the silicon nitride film comprises exposing the film to a plasma induced by a modular high-frequency plasma source. In an embodiment, a sheath potential of the plasma is less than 100 V, and a power density of the high-frequency plasma source is approximately 5 W/cmor greater, approximately 10 W/cmor greater, or approximately 20 W/cmor greater.

Sequential deposition and high frequency plasma treatment of deposited film on patterned and un-patterned substrates

A process development visualization tool generates a first visualization of a parameter associated with a manufacturing process, and provides a GUI control element associated with a process variable of the manufacturing process, wherein the GUI control element has a first setting associated with a first value for the process variable. The process development tool receives a user input to adjust the GUI control element from the first setting to a second setting, determines a second value for the process variable based on the second setting, and determines a second set of values for the parameter that are associated with the second value for the process variable. The process development tool then generates a second visualization of the parameter, wherein the second visualization represents the second set of values for the parameter that are associated with the second value for the process variable.

Process development visualization tool

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to methods for in-situ deposition and treatment of a thin film for improved step coverage. In one embodiment, the method for processing a substrate is provided. The method includes forming a dielectric layer on patterned features of the substrate by exposing the substrate to a gas mixture of a first precursor and a second precursor simultaneously with plasma present in a process chamber, wherein the plasma is formed by a first pulsed RF power, exposing the dielectric layer to a first plasma treatment using a gas mixture of nitrogen and helium in the process chamber, and performing a plasma etch process by exposing the dielectric layer to a plasma formed from a gas mixture of a fluorine-containing precursor and a carrier gas, wherein the plasma is formed in the process chamber by a second pulsed RF power.

Pulsed plasma deposition etch step coverage improvement

Methods are described for forming a flowable low-k dielectric film on a patterned substrate. The film may be a silicon-carbon-oxygen (Si&#x2014;C&#x2014;O) layer in which the silicon and carbon constituents come from a silicon and carbon containing precursor while the oxygen may come from an oxygen-containing precursor activated in a remote plasma region. Shortly after deposition, the silicon-carbon-oxygen layer is treated by exposure to a hydrogen-and-nitrogen-containing precursor such as ammonia prior to curing. The treatment may remove residual moisture from the silicon-carbon-oxygen layer and may make the lattice more resilient during curing and subsequent processing. The treatment may reduce shrinkage of the silicon-carbon-oxygen layer during subsequent processing.

Flowable low-k dielectric gapfill treatment

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Sanjay G Kamath