The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 02, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 29, 2000
Raymond Hung, San Jose, CA (US);
Joseph P. Caulfield, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Hongching Shan, San Jose, CA (US);
Ruiping Wang, Fremont, CA (US);
Gerald Z. Yin, Cupertino, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An oxide etching process, particular useful for selectively etching oxide over a feature having a non-oxide composition, such as silicon nitride and especially when that feature has a corner that is prone to faceting during the oxide etch. The invention preferably uses the unsaturated 4-carbon fluorocarbons, specifically hexafluorobutadiene (C F ), which has a below 10°C. and is commercially available. The hexafluorobutadiene together with argon is excited into a high-density plasma in a reactor which inductively couples plasma source power into the chamber and RF biases the pedestal electrode supporting the wafer. Preferably, a two-step etch is used process is used in which the above etching gas is used in the main step to provide a good vertical profile and a more strongly polymerizing fluorocarbon such as difluoromethane (CH F ) is added in the over etch to protect the nitride corner.