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. 03, 2017
Filed:
Feb. 25, 2016
Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Thorsten Lill, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Ivan L. Berry, III, San Jose, CA (US);
Anthony Ricci, Redwood City, CA (US);
Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
The embodiments herein relate to methods and apparatus for etching features in semiconductor substrates. In a number of cases, the features may be etched while forming a spin-torque-transfer random access memory (STT-RAM) device. In various embodiments, the substrate may be cooled to a low temperature via a cooled substrate support during particular processing steps. The cooled substrate support may have beneficial impacts in terms of reducing the degree of diffusion-related damage in a resulting device. Further, the use of a non-cooled substrate support during certain other processing steps can likewise have beneficial impacts in terms of reducing diffusion-related damage, depending on the particular step. In some implementations, the cooled substrate support may be used in a process to preferentially deposit a material (in some cases a reactant) on certain portions of the substrate. The disclosed embodiments may be used to achieve high quality anisotropic etching results.