Intel Corporation

William G Petro

Farhad K Moghadam

Brett E Huff

Ken Schatz

Mike Maxim

A sputter etch system and a method of conducting a sputter etch. The sputter etch system includes an etch chamber with a wafer pedestal having a top surface to support a wafer and a magnet configured to provide a continuous magnetic field directed at the top surface of the wafer pedestal.

Approach to optimizing an ILD argon sputter process

A method for cleaning a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process for depositing tungsten. After the tungsten has been deposited and the wafer has been removed from the chamber, the chamber undergoes an in-situ cleaning process. In the currently preferred embodiment the in-situ cleaning process consists of cleaning the chamber with nitrogen tri-fluoride (NF.sub.3) and hydrogen (H.sub.2) nitrogen (N.sub.2) plasmas. The tungsten CVD cleaning process also includes purging the chamber with the dilute mixture of silane (SiH.sub.4), argon (Ar) and nitrogen (N.sub.2).

Method for improving stability of tungsten chemical vapor deposition

A high density, high frequency, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process for depositing a passivation layer on a semiconductor integrated circuit wafer. The wafer rests on a grounded electrode while a second electrode disperses gases over the wafer. The second electrode disperses the gases in the same manner as a showerhead. An radio-frequency (RF) potential applied to the showerhead electrode causes the gases to react under specific temperature, pressure, and electrode spacing conditions. Furthermore, the present invention is a low particulate process. The process forms a film of high UV transparency. The chamber is cleaned after removal of the wafer, and gas lines are evacuated. This results in a low particle process. The film have low within-wafer and wafer-to-wafer variation of thickness and refractive index, low pattern sensitivity of thickness of the deposited film, high deposition rate, high moisture resistance (low wet etched rate), low density of SiH and NH bonds, no pinholes, low stress, good sidewall step average, and high resistance to film cracking.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

William G Petro