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US 6,548,899 B2Granted
Method of processing films prior to chemical vapor deposition using electron beam processing
AssigneeElectron Vision Corporation
InventorMatthew Ross
Life of this patent
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AssigneeElectron Vision Corporation
InventorMatthew Ross
Estimating the term…
A treated substrate produced by a process for treating a dielectric layer on a substrate, which comprises applying a sufficient amount of a liquid dielectric composition onto an upper surface of a semiconductor substrate to thereby form a dielectric layer on the upper surface of the substrate, the dielectric layer having a thickness of from about 2,000 to about 50,000 angstroms; heating a surface of the dielectric layer and exposing the dielectric layer to an electron beam radiation, in which the electron beam radiation is concentrated at a distance within about 1,000 angstroms from the surface of the dielectric layer, under vacuum conditions to remove substantially all moisture and/or contaminants from the surface of the dielectric layer at a depth of up to about 1,000 angstroms from the surface of the dielectric layer; and chemical vapor depositing a chemical vapor deposit material onto the surface of the treated dielectric layer while maintaining the vacuum conditions.
A treated substrate produced by a process for treating a dielectric layer on a substrate which comprises:
A microelectronic device produced by a process which comprises:
A support for a microelectronic device which comprises:
A microelectronic device which comprises:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Containing silicon: the material containing Si, O and at least one of H, N, C, F or other non-metal elements, e.g. SiOC, SiOC:H or SiONC
Pretreatment of the material to be coated: by heating
Physical treatment to alter the texture of the surface, e.g. scratching or polishing: irradiation with laser or particle beam
Pretreatment of the material to be coated: deposition of sub-layers, e.g. to promote the adhesion of the main coating
Term ended 11 Jun 2019 (estimated)
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cured dielectric films and to a process for the treatment of the surface of such films to remove moisture and other contaminants therefrom. Such treatment is done by electron beam exposure of the dielectric surface in order to prepare it for a subsequent chemical vapor deposition of oxide, nitride or oxynitride layers. These films are useful in the manufacture of integrated circuits.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following nonlimiting examples serve to illustrate the invention.
A thin film of poly(arylene ether) polymer having a molecular weight of 35,000 is formed on a 4″ silicon wafer using a conventional spin-coating technique. After spin-coating, the film is subjected to a hot-plate bake at a temperature of 150° C. for 2 min. The film thickness after the spinning and baking processes is in the range of 8000 to 10000 Å. Thermal curing is carried out at 425° C. for one hour in a horizontal furnace with N2 flow at atmospheric pressure. Electron beam exposure is conducted in an ElectronCure™ 30 chamber incorporating a large area electron source and quartz lamps for heating the wafer. The cold-cathode source produces a large area electron beam (over 200 mm in diameter) having a substantially uniform emission over its entire surface. Electron emission is controlled by the low bias voltage applied to the anode grid. The electron beam penetration depth is about 1000 Å. Electron beam exposure was conducted at a temperature of 200° C. and in an argon atmosphere (10-30 milliTorr). The surface of the polymer is then coated with a layer of silicon nitride by chemical vapor deposition. The silicon nitride layer shows good adhesion to the surface of the dielectric polymer layer.
A thin film of a siloxane polymer commercially available from AlliedSignal Inc. under the tradename Accuglass® T-11 is formed on a 4″ silicon wafer using a conventional spin-coating technique. After spin-coating, the film is subjected to a hot-plate bake at a temperature of 150° C. for 2 min. The film thickness after the spinning and baking processes is about 4000 Å. Thermal curing is carried out at 425° C. for one hour in a horizontal furnace with N2 flow at atmospheric pressure. The polymer is subjected to an electron beam exposure in an ElectronCure™ 30 chamber incorporating a large area electron source and quartz lamps for heating the wafer. The cold-cathode gas source produces a large area electron beam (over 200 mm in diameter) having a substantially uniform emission over its entire surface. Electron emission is controlled by the low bias voltage applied to the anode grid. The electron beam penetration depth is about 1000 Å. Electron beam exposure was conducted at a temperature of 200° C. and in an argon atmosphere (10-30 milliTorr). The surface of the polymer is then coated with a layer of silicon oxide by chemical vapor deposition. The silicon nitride layer shows good adhesion to the surface of the dielectric polymer layer.