Plasma treatment method to reduce silicon erosion over HDI silicon regions

A method for reducing the loss of silicon over source and drain regions in a CMOS device in a plasma assisted photoresist etching process comprising the step of:

• providing an exposed silicon oxide layer over a silicon substrate adjacent a polysilicon gate structure comprising adjacent sidewall spacers;
• masking a portion of the exposed silicon oxide layer with photoresist to carry out an ion implantation process over an unexposed region for forming source and drain regions within the silicon substrate;
• carrying out an ion implantation process to form source and drain regions within the silicon substrate including partially amorphizing the source and drain regions to create coordinatively unsaturated silicon bonds comprising the silicon substrate;
• and,
• removing the photoresist according to a plasma assisted process comprising fluorine containing, oxygen, and hydrogen containing plasma source gases to coordinatively saturate at least a portion of the coordinatively unsaturated silicon bonds.

A method for reducing the loss of silicon in a plasma assisted photoresist etching process comprising the steps of:

• providing a silicon-containing substrate including a gate structure;
• masking a portion of the silicon-containing substrate with photoresist to carry out an ion implantation process for forming source and drain regions;
• carrying out an ion implantation process;
• and,
• removing the photoresist according to at least one plasma assisted process comprising fluorine containing, oxygen, and hydrogen containing plasma source gases wherein the at least one plasma assisted process comprises at least one sequential etch/plasma treatment/etch process;
• wherein the etch process comprises at least one of a fluorocarbon/oxygen and fluorocarbon/oxygen/hydrogen/inert gas chemistry and the plasma treatment process comprises a hydrogen/inert gas chemistry.