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:
Apr. 21, 2015
Filed:
Apr. 05, 2013
Applicant:
Intermolecular Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Inventors:
Anh Duong, Fremont, CA (US);
Errol Todd Ryan, Clifton Park, NY (US);
Assignee:
Intermolecular, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H01L 21/44 (2006.01); H01L 21/768 (2006.01); H01L 21/3213 (2006.01); C23F 1/34 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
H01L 21/76841 (2013.01); H01L 21/32134 (2013.01); C23F 1/34 (2013.01);
Abstract
Wet-etch solutions for conductive metals (e.g., copper) and metal nitrides (e.g., tantalum nitride) can be tuned to differentially etch the conductive metals and metal nitrides while having very little effect on nearby oxides (e.g., silicon dioxide hard mask materials), and etching refractory metals (e.g. tantalum) at an intermediate rate. The solutions are aqueous base solutions (e.g., ammonia-peroxide mixture or TMAH-peroxide mixture) with just enough hydrofluoric acid (HF) added to make the solution's pH about 8-10. Applications include metallization of sub-micron logic structures.