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:
Dec. 06, 2016
Filed:
Nov. 14, 2014
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Chia-Ling Kao, San Jose, CA (US);
Sean Kang, San Ramon, CA (US);
Jeremiah T. Pender, San Jose, CA (US);
Srinivas D. Nemani, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
He Ren, San Jose, CA (US);
Mehul Naik, San Jose, CA (US);
APPLIED MATERIALS, INC., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
Implementations described herein generally relate to semiconductor manufacturing and more particularly to methods for etching a low-k dielectric barrier layer disposed on a substrate using a non-carbon based approach. In one implementation, a method for etching a barrier low-k layer is provided. The method comprises (a) exposing a surface of the low-k barrier layer to a treatment gas mixture to modify at least a portion of the low-k barrier layer and (b) chemically etching the modified portion of the low-k barrier layer by exposing the modified portion to a chemical etching gas mixture, wherein the chemical etching gas mixture includes at least an ammonium gas and a nitrogen trifluoride gas or at least a hydrogen gas and a nitrogen trifluoride gas.