Electrochemical reduction of surface metal oxides
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsYoon Ah Shin, Bencherki Mebarki, Joung Joo Lee, Xianmin Tang, Thai Cheng Chua, Christian W. Valencia
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Abstract
Methods for reducing metal oxide layers on semiconductor devices to pure metal layers using microwave radiation are described. The method includes exposing a semiconductor substrate surface to microwave radiation to reduce a metal oxide layer on a metal material. The semiconductor substrate surface may have at least one feature extending a depth from the substrate surface to a bottom and having two sidewalls, where the bottom includes the metal oxide layer and the two sidewalls include a dielectric material.
Claims20
A method of processing a semiconductor substrate, the method comprising:
- exposing a semiconductor substrate surface to microwave radiation, the semiconductor substrate surface having at least one feature formed therein, the at least one feature having two sidewalls and extending a depth to a bottom, the bottom comprising a metal oxide layer on a metal material, wherein the microwave radiation reduces the metal oxide layer to the metal material.
A method of processing a semiconductor substrate, the method comprising:
- exposing a semiconductor substrate surface having at least one feature therein to microwave radiation to reduce a molybdenum oxide layer on a molybdenum metal material, the at least one feature extending a depth from the substrate surface to a bottom comprising the molybdenum oxide layer and having two sidewalls comprising a low-k dielectric material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.