System and Process to Remove Film from Semiconductor Devices
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsChern-Yow Hsu, Shih-Chang Liu, Chia-Shiung Tsai
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Abstract
Embodiments of the present disclosure are a method of forming a semiconductor device, a method of forming a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device, and a process tool. An embodiment is a process tool comprising an ion beam etch (IBE) chamber, an encapsulation chamber, a transfer module interconnecting the IBE chamber and the encapsulation chamber, the transfer module being capable of transferring a workpiece from the IBE chamber to the encapsulation chamber without exposing the workpiece to an external environment.
Claims20
A method of forming a semiconductor device, the method comprising:
- forming a second layer over a first layer;
- performing a first etch process on the second layer to define a feature, wherein the first etch process forms a film on a surface of the feature;
- performing an ion beam etch (IBE) process on the feature, wherein the ion beam etch removes the film from the surface of the feature;
- and
- depositing a dielectric layer over the feature and the second layer, the depositing the dielectric layer being performed in-situ with the IBE process.
A method of forming a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device, the method comprising:
- forming an MTJ layer over a bottom electrode;
- forming a top electrode layer over the MTJ layer;
- selectively etching the top electrode layer to form a top electrode over the MTJ layer;
- patterning a free layer of the MTJ layer with a first ion beam etch (IBE) process;
- and
- encapsulating the top electrode, the MTJ layer, and the bottom electrode with a first dielectric layer, the encapsulating step being performed in-situ with the first IBE process.
A process tool comprising:
- an ion beam etch (IBE) chamber;
- an encapsulation chamber;
- and
- a transfer module interconnecting the IBE chamber and the encapsulation chamber, the transfer module being capable of transferring a workpiece from the IBE chamber to the encapsulation chamber without exposing the workpiece to an external environment.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.