Process for forming a plasma nitride film suitable for gate dielectric application in sub-0.25 μm technologies
AssigneeAgere Systems Guardian Corp.
InventorsYi Ma, Pradip K. Roy
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Abstract
A process for forming a layered gate dielectric structure which suppresses boron diffusion and provides a gate dielectric structure which is resistant to charge trapping, pinhole-free, and which does not introduce mobility or drive current problems. The process for forming the layered gate dielectric structure includes plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of a structurally deficient nitride film and an annealing process which converts the originally deposited film to either an oxynitride film or a stoichiometric nitride film.
Claims28
A process for forming a gate structure on a semiconductor substrate, comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing a semiconductor substrate having a surface being a gate region;
- (b) forming an oxide film over the gate region;
- (c) depositing an original dielectric layer over the oxide film by means of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, the original dielectric layer represented by SlxNy wherein x is greater than 0.75y as deposited, the oxide film and the original dielectric layer combining to form a gate dielectric structure;
- (d) forming a gate electrode film over the gate dielectric structure;
- and
- (e) annealing the structure.
A process for forming a gate structure on a semiconductor substrate, comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing a semiconductor substrate having a surface being a gate region;
- (b) forming an oxide film over the gate region;
- (c) depositing an original dielectric layer over the oxide film by means of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, the original dielectric layer including silicon, hydrogen, and nitrogen in a non-stoichiometric ratio, the oxide film and the original dielectric layer combining to form a gate dielectric structure;
- (d) forming a gate electrode film over the date dielectric structure;
- and
- (e) annealing the structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.