Nitrogen treatment of polished halogen-doped silicon glass
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsHICHEM M'SAAD, DEREK R. WITTY, MANOJ VELLAIKAL, LIN ZHANG, YAXIN WANG
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Abstract
A film of fluorine-doped silicon glass (“FSG”) is exposed to a nitrogen-containing plasma to nitride a portion of the FSG film. In one embodiment, the FSG film is chemically-mechanically polished prior to nitriding. The nitriding process is believed to scavenge moisture and free fluorine from the FSG film. The plasma can heat the FSG film to about 400° C. for about one minute to incorporate about 0.4 atomic percent nitrogen to a depth of nearly a micron. Thus, the nitriding process can passivate the FSG film deeper than a via depth.
Claims20
A method for forming a dielectric layer on a substrate, the method comprising:
- (a) depositing a halogen-doped silicon glass layer on the substrate;
- (b) polishing the halogen-doped silicon glass layer to form a polished surface;
- and
- (c) nitriding the polished surface.
A method for forming a dielectric layer on a substrate, the method comprising:
- (a) depositing a fluorine-doped silicon glass (“FSG”) layer on the substrate;
- (b) polishing the FSG layer using a chemical-mechanical polishing technique to form a polished surface;
- and
- (c) nitriding the polished surface to incorporate a concentration of at least about 5×1019 atoms/cm3 of nitrogen into the FSG layer to a depth from the polished surface of at least 5,000 Å by exposing the polished surface to a plasma formed from at least nitrogen gas.
A method for increasing the compressive stress in a layer of fluorine-doped silicon glass (FSG), the method comprising:
- (a) depositing an FSG film on a substrate;
- and
- (b) nitriding the FSG film by exposing the FSG film to a plasma formed from a nitrogen source gas for a period of time and at a temperature sufficient to incorporate nitrogen into the FSG film at a concentration of at least about 1020 cm−3 to a selected depth of at least about 0.5 microns.
A substrate-processing apparatus for nitriding a fluorinated silicon glass layer on a substrate, the apparatus comprising:
- (a) a plasma processing chamber;
- (b) a gas delivery system configured to deliver a nitrogen-containing source gas to said plasma processing chamber;
- (c) an RF plasma system configured to form a plasma within said processing chamber;
- (d) a CMP processing chamber;
- (e) a substrate transfer system configured to transfer substrates between said CMP chamber and said plasma CVD chamber;
- (f) a controller configured to control said gas delivery system, said RF plasma system and said substrate transfer system;
- and
- (g) a memory, coupled to said controller, comprising a computer-readable medium having a computer-readable program embodied therein for directing operation of the substrate processing apparatus, said computer-readable program comprising:
- (i) computer instructions for controlling said substrate transfer system to transfer a substrate having a polished halogen-doped silicon glass layer formed thereon from said CMP chamber to said plasma processing chamber;
- (ii) computer instructions for controlling said gas delivery system to flow a nitrogen-containing source gas into said plasma processing chamber;
- and
- (iii) computer instructions for controlling the plasma system to form a plasma from said nitrogen-containing source gas to nitride the polished halogen-doped silicon glass layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.