Gas phase etch with controllable etch selectivity of silicon-germanium alloys
AssigneeTokyo Electron Limited
InventorsSubhadeep Kal, Masashi Matsumoto, Daisuke Ito, Yusuke Muraki, Aelan Mosden
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Abstract
A method for the dry removal of a material on a microelectronic workpiece is described. The method includes receiving a substrate having a working surface exposing a silicon-germanium alloy and at least one other material, the silicon-germanium alloy represented as SixGe1-x, wherein x is a real number ranging from 0 to 1; and selectively etching the silicon-germanium alloy relative to the other material by exposing the substrate to a controlled gas-phase environment containing an anhydrous halogen compound, such as a diatomic halogen or an interhalogen compound.
Claims20
A method of etching, comprising:
- receiving a substrate having a working surface exposing a silicon-germanium alloy and at least one other material, the silicon-germanium alloy represented as SixGe1-x, wherein x is a real number ranging from 0 to 1;
- and
- selectively etching the silicon-germanium alloy relative to the other material by exposing the substrate to a controlled gas-phase environment containing an anhydrous halogen compound.
A method of etching, comprising:
- receiving a substrate having a working surface exposing a silicon-germanium alloy and at least one other material, the silicon-germanium alloy represented as SixGe1-x, wherein x is a real number ranging from 0 to 1;
- and
- selectively removing at least a portion of the silicon-germanium alloy by performing the following:
- exposing the surface of the substrate to a chemical environment containing an anhydrous halogen compound at a first set-point temperature to chemically alter a surface region of the silicon-germanium alloy, and
- then, elevating the temperature of the substrate to a second set-point temperature to remove the chemically treated surface region of the silicon-germanium alloy.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.