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:
Oct. 05, 2010
Filed:
Mar. 21, 2007
Jong Mun Kim, San Jose, CA (US);
Judy Wang, Cupertino, CA (US);
Ajey M. Joshi, San Jose, CA (US);
Jingbao Liu, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Bryan Y. Pu, San Jose, CA (US);
Jong Mun Kim, San Jose, CA (US);
Judy Wang, Cupertino, CA (US);
Ajey M. Joshi, San Jose, CA (US);
Jingbao Liu, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Bryan Y. Pu, San Jose, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
In one embodiment of the present invention, a halogen-free plasma etch processes is used to define a feature in a multi-layered masking stack including an amorphous carbon layer. In a particular embodiment, oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and carbon monoxide (CO) are utilized to etch the amorphous carbon layer to form a mask capable of producing sub-100 nm features in a substrate film having a reduced line edge roughness value. In another embodiment, the present invention employs an Oplasma pretreatment preceding the halogen-free amorphous carbon etch to first form an oxidized silicon region in a patterned photoresist layer to increase the selectivity of the amorphous carbon etch relative to a patterned photoresist layer containing unoxidized silicon.