14233 results about "Etching" patented technology

Annular and linear contact structures are described which exhibit a greatly reduced susceptibility to process deviations caused by lithographic and deposition variations than does a conventional circular contact plug. In one embodiment, a standard conductive material such as carbon or titanium nitride is used to form the contact. In an alternative embodiment, a memory material itself is used to form the contact. These contact structures may be made by various processes, including chemical mechanical planarization and facet etching.

Methods of controlling the step coverage and pattern loading of a layer on a substrate are provided. The dielectric layer may be a silicon nitride, silicon oxide, or silicon oxynitride layer. The method comprises depositing a dielectric layer on a substrate having at least one formed feature across a surface of the substrate and etching the dielectric layer with a plasma from oxygen or a halogen-containing gas to provide a desired profile of the dielectric layer on the at least one formed feature. The deposition of the dielectric layer and the etching of the dielectric layer may be repeated for multiple cycles to provide the desired profile of the dielectric layer.

A semiconductor method of manufacturing involving porous and / or carbon containing, low-k dielectrics is provided. The method includes forming a hydrocarbon of the general composition CxHy on the surface of the low-k dielectric. The hydrocarbon layer includes depositing a precursor material, preferably C2H4 or (CH3)2CHC6H6CH3. In accordance with embodiments of this invention, carbon diffuses into the low-k dielectric, thereby reducing carbon depletion damage caused by plasma processing or etching. Surface dielectric pores damaged by plasma processing are also repaired by sealing them with the CXHY layer. Embodiments include semiconductor devices, such as devices having damascene interconnect structures, manufacturing using methods provided.

Methods for accurate and conformal removal of atomic layers of materials make use of the self-limiting nature of adsorption of at least one reactant on the substrate surface. In certain embodiments, a first reactant is introduced to the substrate in step (a) and is adsorbed on the substrate surface until the surface is partially or fully saturated. A second reactant is then added in step (b), reacting with the adsorbed layer of the first reactant to form an etchant. The amount of an etchant, and, consequently, the amount of etched material is limited by the amount of adsorbed first reactant. By repeating steps (a) and (b), controlled atomic-scale etching of material is achieved. These methods may be used in interconnect pre-clean applications, gate dielectric processing, manufacturing of memory devices, or any other applications where removal of one or multiple atomic layers of material is desired.

Methods for accurate and conformal removal of atomic layers of materials make use of the self-limiting nature of adsorption of at least one reactant on the substrate surface. In certain embodiments, a first reactant is introduced to the substrate in step (a) and is adsorbed on the substrate surface until the surface is partially or fully saturated. A second reactant is then added in step (b), reacting with the adsorbed layer of the first reactant to form an etchant. The amount of an etchant, and, consequently, the amount of etched material is limited by the amount of adsorbed first reactant. By repeating steps (a) and (b), controlled atomic-scale etching of material is achieved. These methods may be used in interconnect pre-clean applications, gate dielectric processing, manufacturing of memory devices, or any other applications where removal of one or multiple atomic layers of material is desired.

A method to achieve a very low effective dielectric constant in high performance back end of the line chip interconnect wiring and the resulting multilayer structure are disclosed. The process involves fabricating the multilayer interconnect wiring structure by methods and materials currently known in the state of the art of semiconductor processing; removing the intralevel dielectric between the adjacent metal features by a suitable etching process; applying a thin passivation coating over the exposed etched structure; annealing the etched structure to remove plasma damage; laminating an insulating cover layer to the top surface of the passivated metal features; optionally depositing an insulating environmental barrier layer on top of the cover layer; etching vias in the environmental barrier layer, cover layer and the thin passivation layer for terminal pad contacts; and completing the device by fabricating terminal input / output pads. The method obviates issues such as processability and thermal stability associated with low dielectric constant materials by avoiding their use. Since air, which has the lowest dielectric constant, is used as the intralevel dielectric the structure created by this method would possess a very low capacitance and hence fast propagation speeds. Such structure is ideally suitable for high density interconnects required in high performance microelectronic device chips.

A method for reducing line width roughness (LWR) of a feature in an etch layer below a patterned photoresist mask having mask features is provided. The method includes (a) non-etching plasma pre-etch treatment of the photoresist mask, and (b) etching of a feature in the etch layer through the pre-treated photoresist mask using an etching gas. The non-etching plasma pre-etch treatment includes (a1) providing a treatment gas containing H2 and COS, (a2) forming a plasma from the treatment gas, and (a3) stopping the treatment gas.

Plasma-based atomic layer etching of materials may be of benefit to various semiconductor manufacturing and related technologies. For example, plasma-based atomic layer etching of materials may be beneficial for adding and / or removing angstrom thick layers from a surface in advanced semiconductor manufacturing and related technologies that increasingly demand atomistic surface engineering. A method may include depositing a controlled amount of a chemical precursor on an unmodified surface layer of a substrate to create a chemical precursor layer and a modified surface layer. The method may also include selectively removing a portion of the chemical precursor layer, a portion of the modified surface layer and a controlled portion of the substrate. Further, the controlled portion may be removed to a depth ranging from about 1 / 10 of an angstrom to about 1 nm. Additionally, the deposition and selective removal may be performed under a plasma environment.

Methods of preparing a clean surface of germanium tin or silicon germanium tin layers for subsequent deposition are provided. An overlayer of Ge, doped Ge, another GeSn or SiGeSn layer, a doped GeSn or SiGeSn layer, an insulator, or a metal can be deposited on a prepared GeSn or SiGeSn layer by positioning a substrate with an exposed germanium tin or silicon germanium tin layer in a processing chamber, heating the processing chamber and flowing a halide gas into the processing chamber to etch the surface of the substrate using either thermal or plasma assisted etching followed by depositing an overlayer on the substantially oxide free and contaminant free surface. Methods can also include the placement and etching of a sacrificial layer, a thermal clean using rapid thermal annealing, or a process in a plasma of nitrogen trifluoride and ammonia gas.

A method for fabricating a layer structure in a trench includes: simultaneously forming a dielectric film containing a Si—N bond on an upper surface, and a bottom surface and sidewalls of the trench, wherein a top / bottom portion of the film formed on the upper surface and the bottom surface and a sidewall portion of the film formed on the sidewalls are given different chemical resistance properties by bombardment of a plasma excited by applying voltage between two electrodes between which the substrate is place in parallel to the two electrodes; and substantially removing either one of but not both of the top / bottom portion and the sidewall portion of the film by wet etching which removes the one of the top / bottom portion and the sidewall portion of the film more predominantly than the other according to the different chemical resistance properties.

A method of processing a substrate to enable selective doping without a photolithography process is provided. The method includes forming a diffusion barrier on the substrate having a patterned structure using plasma deposition method, removing the diffusion barrier except for part of the diffusion barrier using wet etching, forming a diffusion source layer on the patterned structure and the part of the diffusion barrier, and applying energy to the diffusion source layer.

A method for fabricating a layer structure in a trench includes: simultaneously forming a dielectric film containing a Si—N bond on an upper surface, and a bottom surface and sidewalls of the trench, wherein a top / bottom portion of the film formed on the upper surface and the bottom surface and a sidewall portion of the film formed on the sidewalls are given different chemical resistance properties by bombardment of a plasma excited by applying voltage between two electrodes between which the substrate is place in parallel to the two electrodes; and substantially removing either one of but not both of the top / bottom portion and the sidewall portion of the film by wet etching which removes the one of the top / bottom portion and the sidewall portion of the film more predominantly than the other according to the different chemical resistance properties.

A system and method for depositing a film within a reaction chamber are disclosed. An exemplary system includes a temperature measurement device, such as a pyrometer, to measure an exterior wall surface of the reaction chamber. A temperature of the exterior wall surface can be controlled to mitigate cleaning or etching of an interior wall surface of the reaction chamber.

A substrate processing apparatus which is capable of enhancing productivity in manufacturing product substrates. In process chambers 106 and 107 of an etching apparatus 100, etching is carried out on a substrate as an object to be processed, and dummy processing is carried out on at least one non-product substrate before execution of the etching. A host computer 200 determines whether or not the dummy processing is to be executed. The host computer 200 determines whether or not the interior of each of the process chambers 106 and 107 is in a stable state, and omits the execution of the dummy processing when it is determined that it is in the stable state.

A method for fabricating a layer structure in a trench includes: simultaneously forming a dielectric film containing a Si—N bond on an upper surface, and a bottom surface and sidewalls of the trench, wherein a top / bottom portion of the film formed on the upper surface and the bottom surface and a sidewall portion of the film formed on the sidewalls are given different chemical resistance properties by bombardment of a plasma excited by applying voltage between two electrodes between which the substrate is place in parallel to the two electrodes; and substantially removing either one of but not both of the top / bottom portion and the sidewall portion of the film by wet etching which removes the one of the top / bottom portion and the sidewall portion of the film more predominantly than the other according to the different chemical resistance properties.

An optoelectronic device, comprising an active region and a waveguide structure to provide optical confinement of light emitted from the active region; a pair of facets on opposite ends of the device, having opposite surface polarity; and one of the facets which has been roughened by a crystallographic chemical etching process, wherein the device is a nonpolar or semipolar (Ga,In,Al,B)N based device.

A GaN-based thin film (thick film) is grown using a metal buffer layer grown on a substrate. (a) A metal buffer layer (210) made of, for example, Cr or Cu is vapor-deposited on a sapphire substrate (120). (b) A substrate obtained by vapor-depositing the metal buffer layer (210) on the sapphire substrate (120) is nitrided in an ammonia gas ambient, thereby forming a metal nitride layer (212). (c) A GaN buffer layer (222) is grown on the nitrided metal buffer layers (210, 212). (d) Finally, a GaN single-crystal layer (220) is grown. This GaN single-crystal layer (220) can be grown to have various thicknesses depending on the objects. A freestanding substrate can be fabricated by selective chemical etching of the substrate fabricated by the above steps. It is also possible to use the substrate fabricated by the above steps as a GaN template substrate for fabricating a GaN-based light emitting diode or laser diode.

This invention relates to an improved process for the selective etching of TiN from silicon dioxide (quartz) and SiN surfaces commonly found in semiconductor deposition chambers equipment and tools. In the process, an SiO2 or SiN surface having TiN thereon is contacted with XeF2 in a contact zone to selectively convert the TiN to a volatile species and then the volatile species is removed from the contact zone. XeF2 can be preformed or formed in situ by reaction between Xe and a fluorine compound.

The present invention provides a bonded substrate fabricated to have its final active layer thickness of 200 nm or lower by performing the etching by only 1 nm to 1 μm with a solution having an etching effect on a surface of an active layer of a bonded substrate which has been prepared by bonding two substrates after one of them having been ion-implanted and then cleaving off a portion thereof by heat treatment. SC-1 solution is used for performing the etching. A polishing, a hydrogen annealing and a sacrificial oxidation may be respectively applied to the active layer before and / or after the etching. The film thickness of this active layer can be made uniform over the entire surface area and the surface roughness of the active layer can be reduced as well.

The invention concerns a method for producing a gallium nitride (GaN) epitaxial layer characterised in that it consists in depositing on a substrate a dielectric layer acting as a mask and depositing on the masked gallium nitride, by epitaxial deposit, so as to induce the deposit of gallium nitride patterns and the anisotropic lateral growth of said patterns, the lateral growth being pursued until the different patterns coalesce. The deposit of the gallium nitride patterns can be carried out ex-situ by dielectric etching or in-situ by treating the substrate for coating it with a dielectric film whereof the thickness is of the order of one angstrom. The invention also concerns the gallium nitride layers obtained by said method.

A plasma processing apparatus comprising at least a plasma processing chamber for plasma-processing an object; object-holding means for disposing the object in the plasma processing chamber; and plasma-generating means for generating a plasma in the plasma processing chamber. The inner wall of the plasma processing chamber is at least partially covered with an oxide film based on a pre-treating plasma. A plasma processing apparatus and a plasma processing method effectively prevent the spluttering and the etching of the inner wall of the plasma processing chamber while suppressing contamination to the object.

A method of filling recesses or grooves on a patterned surface with a layer of film, by combining depositing a film by PEALD / PPECVD on the patterned surface and etching the film, wherein the deposition and the etching are separately controlled, and wherein the conditions for deposition can be controlled by controlling RF power.

A process for fabricating a leadless plastic chip carrier includes selectively etching at least a first surface of a leadframe strip to partially define at least a plurality of contact pads and a die attach pad; selectively plating at least one layer of metal on a second surface of the leadframe strip, on an undersurface of at least the plurality of contact pads and the die attach pad; mounting a semiconductor die on the first surface, on the partially defined die attach pad; wire bonding the semiconductor die to ones of the contact pads; encapsulating the wire bonds and the semiconductor die in a molding material such that the molding material covers a first portion of the die attach pad and first portions of the contact pads; selectively etching a second surface of the leadframe strip to define a second portion of the contact pads and a second portion of the die attach pad by etching the second surface with the at least one layer of metal resisting etching; and singulating the leadless plastic chip carrier from the leadframe strip.