Use of Cl2 and/or HCl during silicon epitaxial film formation
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsZhiyuan Ye, Yihwan Kim, Xiaowei Li, Ali Zojaji, Nicholas C. Dalida, Jinsong Tang, Xiao Chen, Arkadii V. Samoilov
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In a first aspect, a method of forming an epitaxial film on a substrate is provided. The method includes (a) providing a substrate; (b) exposing the substrate to a silicon source and a carbon source so as to form a carbon-containing silicon epitaxial film; (c) encapsulating the carbon-containing silicon epitaxial film with an encapsulating film; and (d) exposing the substrate to Cl2 so as to etch the encapsulating film. Numerous other aspects are provided.
Claims21
A method of forming an epitaxial film on a substrate comprising:
- (a) providing a substrate;
- (b) exposing the substrate to a silicon source and a carbon source so as to form a carbon containing silicon epitaxial film;
- (c) encapsulating the carbon containing silicon epitaxial film with an adjacent encapsulating film adapted to prevent the carbon containing silicon epitaxial film from being exposed to Cl2;
- and
- (d) exposing the substrate to Cl2 so as to etch the encapsulating film, wherein the encapsulating film prevents the carbon containing silicon epitaxial film from being exposed to the Cl2.
A method of forming an epitaxial film on a substrate comprising:
- (a) providing a substrate;
- (b) exposing the substrate to a silicon source and an additional element source so as to form an additional element containing silicon epitaxial film;
- (c) encapsulating the additional element containing silicon epitaxial film with an undoped silicon epitaxial encapsulating film adapted to prevent the additional element containing silicon epitaxial film from being exposed to Cl2;
- and
- (d) exposing the substrate to Cl2 so as to etch the encapsulating film, wherein the encapsulating film prevents the additional element containing silicon epitaxial film from being exposed to the Cl2.
A method of forming an epitaxial film on a substrate comprising:
- (a) providing a substrate;
- (b) exposing the substrate to a silicon source and an additional element source so as to form an additional element containing silicon epitaxial film;
- (c) encapsulating the additional element containing silicon epitaxial film with an epitaxial encapsulating film adapted to prevent the additional element containing silicon epitaxial film from being exposed to Cl2;
- and
- (d) exposing the substrate to Cl2 so as to etch the encapsulating film, wherein the encapsulating film prevents the additional element containing silicon epitaxial film from being exposed to the Cl2.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.