Passivation chemistry for plasma etching
AssigneeLam Research Corporation
InventorEric A. Hudson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Various embodiments herein relate to methods and apparatus for etching a recessed feature in a material on a substrate. For example, the methods may include (a) flowing a gas mixture into a processing chamber, where the gas mixture includes an etch component and a passivation component, and where the passivation component includes particular elements and/or species and/or is provided under particular conditions; (b) generating a plasma from the gas mixture in the processing chamber; and (c) exposing the substrate to the plasma and etching the recessed feature in the material on the substrate. In many cases, the material being etched on the substrate includes dielectric material and/or an electrically conductive material.
Claims7
A method of etching a recessed feature into a material on a substrate in a processing chamber, the method comprising:
- (a) flowing a gas mixture into the processing chamber,
- wherein the gas mixture comprises an etch component and a passivation component,
- wherein one or more of the following conditions is satisfied:
- (i) the passivation component comprises an element selected from the group consisting of rhenium, lead, nickel, zinc, gallium, vanadium, germanium, arsenic, antimony, tellurium, selenium, and combinations thereof,
- (ii) the passivation component comprises Sn(CH3)4 and/or SnH4,
- (iii) the passivation component comprises MoF6 and/or MoCl2F2,
- (iv) the passivation component comprises WOCl4, bis(t-butylimido)bis(dimethylamino)tungsten(VI) (((CH3)3CN)2W(N(CH3)2)2), mesitylene tungsten tricarbonyl (C6H3(CH3)3W(CO)3), WOF4, WO2F2, and/or WO2Cl2, and/or
- (v) the substrate is positioned on a substrate support during etching, the substrate support is maintained at a temperature of about −10° C. or warmer during etching, and the passivation component comprises an element selected from the group consisting of tin, molybdenum, titanium, tantalum, and combinations thereof;
- (b) generating a plasma from the gas mixture in the processing chamber;
- and
- (c) exposing the substrate to the plasma and etching the recessed feature into the material on the substrate,
- wherein the material on the substrate comprises an electrically conductive material, and
- wherein (c) comprises etching the recessed feature into the electrically conductive material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.