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US 7,008,878 B2Granted
Plasma treatment and etching process for ultra-thin dielectric films
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsJu-Wang Hsu, Yuan-Hung Chiu, Hun-Jan Tao
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Abstract
A method for dry etching a dielectric layer including providing a substrate; forming at least one overlying dielectric layer over the substrate; subjecting the at least one overlying layer to a plasma oxidizing process; and, subjecting the at least one overlying layer to a plasma etching process.
Claims17
A method for dry etching a dielectric layer comprising the steps of:
- providing a substrate;
- forming at least one overlying dielectric layer over the substrate;
- subjecting the at least one overlying dielectric layer to a plasma oxidizing process to form an oxidized dielectric portion;
- and,
- subjecting the oxidized dielectric portion to a plasma etching process, wherein the plasma etching process comprises a ratio of an oxygen containing plasma source gas to a fluorohydrocarbon plasma source gas wherein an increasing flow rate of the oxygen containing plasma gas source increases an etching selectivity with respect to an underlying material layer.
2 more elements
A method for etching a sidewall spacer comprising the steps of:
- providing a semiconductor substrate comprising a gate structure;
- forming a dielectric layer covering the gate structure;
- plasma oxidizing the dielectric layer to form an oxidized dielectric portion;
- and,
- plasma etching the oxidized dielectric portion to selectively remove the oxidized dielectric portion over horizontal surfaces.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.