Sidewall polymer forming gas additives for etching processes
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsRaney Williams, Jeffrey Chinn, Jitske Trevor, Thorsten B. Lill, Padmapani Nallan, Tamas Varga, Herve Mace
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process of reducing critical dimension (CD) microloading in dense and isolated regions of etched features of silicon-containing material on a substrate uses a plasma of an etchant gas and an additive gas. In one version, the etchant gas comprises halogen species absent fluorine, and the additive gas comprises fluorine species and carbon species, or hydrogen species and carbon species.
Claims13
A method of etching silicon-containing material on a substrate, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) placing the substrate having silicon containing material in a chamber;
- and
- (b) forming a plasma from a process gas introduced into the chamber, the process gas comprising an etchant gas comprising halogen species absent fluorine and an additive gas comprising (i) one or more of NF3, SF6, Cl2F, ClF2, and SOF2, and (ii) one or more of CH4, C2H6, C2H4, and C2H2, wherein the volumetric flow ratio of the additive gas to the etchant gas is from about 1:4 to about 1:20.
A method of etching silicon-containing material on a substrate, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) placing the substrate having silicon containing material in a chamber;
- and
- (b) forming a plasma from a process gas introduced into the chamber, the process gas comprising an etchant gas comprising halogen species absent fluorine and an additive gas comprising (i) one or more of NF3, SF6, Cl2F, ClF2, and SOF2, (ii) one or more of CH4, C2H6, C2H4, and C2H2, and (iii) CF4.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.