Conformal deposition of silicon carbide films
AssigneeNovellus Systems, Inc.
InventorsBhadri N. Varadarajan, Bo Gong, Zhe Gui
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Abstract
Disclosed are methods and systems for providing silicon carbide films. A layer of silicon carbide can be provided under process conditions that employ one or more silicon-containing precursors that have one or more silicon-hydrogen bonds and/or silicon-silicon bonds. The silicon-containing precursors may also have one or more silicon-oxygen bonds and/or silicon-carbon bonds. One or more radical species in a substantially low energy state can react with the silicon-containing precursors to form the silicon carbide film. The one or more radical species can be formed in a remote plasma source.
Claims13
An apparatus for depositing a silicon-carbon-containing film on a substrate, the apparatus comprising:
- means for supporting the substrate in a reaction chamber;
- means for generating a capacitively coupled plasma remote from the reaction chamber;
- means for delivering a silicon-containing precursor into the reaction chamber;
- and
- means for delivering radicals into the reaction chamber, wherein the silicon-containing precursor delivering means is located downstream of the radicals delivering means;
- and
- a controller configured with instructions to perform the following operations:
- flowing the silicon-containing precursor into the reaction chamber through the silicon-containing precursor delivery means, wherein the silicon-containing precursor comprises at least one of a silicon-silicon (Si—Si) bond or a silicon-hydrogen bond (Si—H) bond, and at least one of a silicon-carbon (Si—C) bond, a silicon-nitrogen (Si—N) bond, or a silicon-oxygen (Si—O) bond, wherein the silicon-containing precursor is free of carbon-oxygen (C—O) bonds and carbon-nitrogen (C—N) bonds;
- generating plasma comprising hydrogen radicals in the capacitively coupled plasma generating means;
- and
- delivering the hydrogen radicals into the reaction chamber through the radicals delivering means under conditions so that the hydrogen radicals react with the silicon-containing precursor to deposit the silicon-carbon-containing film on the substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.