Dry plasma etch method to pattern MRAM stack
AssigneeLam Research Corporation
InventorsSamantha Tan, Taeseung Kim, Wenbing Yang, Jeffrey Marks, Thorsten Lill
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Abstract
Methods of etching metal by depositing a material reactive with a metal to be etched and a halogen to form a volatile species and exposing the substrate to a halogen-containing gas and activation gas to etch the substrate are provided. Deposited materials may include silicon, germanium, titanium, carbon, tin, and combinations thereof. Methods are suitable for fabricating MRAM structures and may involve integrating ALD and ALE processes without breaking vacuum.
Claims20
A method of etching a substrate in a chamber, the method comprising:
- (a) exposing the substrate comprising one or more layers to a halogen-containing gas to modify a surface of one or more layers on the substrate by adsorbing the halogen-containing gas onto the surface of the one or more layers,
- (b) exposing the substrate to an activation gas and an activation source to etch the modified surface of the one or more layers on the substrate, and
- (c) during (a) and (b), providing to the chamber a reactive material that is reactive with both the halogen-containing gas and a material of the one or more layers on the substrate to form a volatile species,
- wherein performing (a) and (b) constitutes one cycle of atomic layer etching.
A method of etching a substrate in a chamber, the method comprising:
- (a) providing a substrate comprising one or more layers to a chamber;
- (b) depositing a first material over the one or more layers, the reactive material being reactive with a halide and a second material of the one or more layers to form a volatile species;
- (c) after depositing the first material, exposing the substrate comprising the reactive material to a halogen-containing gas to modify a surface of the second material of one or more layers on the substrate by adsorbing the halogen-containing gas to the surface;
- and
- (b) exposing the substrate to an activation gas and igniting a plasma to etch the modified surface of the second material of the one or more layers on the substrate by forming the volatile species.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.