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US 12,735,785 B2Granted
High selectivity, low stress, and low hydrogen carbon hardmasks in low-pressure conditions with wide gap electrode spacing
AssigneeLam Research Corporation
InventorsAbbin Antony, Xin Meng, Xinyi Chen, Sreeram Sonti, Kapu Sirish Reddy
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Abstract
Provided herein are methods and related apparatus for depositing an ashable hard mask (AHM) on a substrate by providing a wide gap electrode spacing in low-pressure conditions. A wide gap electrode may facilitate control of parasitic plasmas in low-pressure conditions, thereby enabling formation of high selectivity, low stress, and low-hydrogen AHMs. The AHM may then be used to etch features into underlying layers of the substrate.
Claims14
A method of forming an ashable hard mask (AHM) film, comprising:
- exposing a substrate to a process gas at a pressure of about 1 Torr or less, the process gas comprising a hydrocarbon precursor gas;
- and
- depositing on the substrate an AHM film by a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process, wherein the PECVD process comprises igniting a plasma between a showerhead and a pedestal, wherein the showerhead and the pedestal are separated by a gap of about 0.85 inches or more.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.