Oxidizing filler material lines to increase width of hard mask lines
AssigneeGlobalfoundries Inc.
InventorsShivaji Peddeti, Chang Maeng
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A starting semiconductor structure includes a layer of filler material, a hard mask layer over the layer of filler material, and filler material lines over the hard mask layer. The starting semiconductor structure is placed in an etching chamber, and oxygen gas and high plasma power are inserted into the etching chamber and oxidizing, resulting in one or more of the filler material lines being oxidized, the filler material line(s) increasing in width from oxidizing, and etching the hard mask layer with a chemistry that is non-selective to the oxidized filler material lines and hard mask layer, and which has a stronger lateral etch selectivity to the oxidized filler material lines than the hard mask layer.
Claims10
A method, comprising:
- providing a starting semiconductor structure, the starting semiconductor structure comprising a layer of filler material, a hard mask layer over the layer of filler material, and a plurality of filler material lines over the hard mask layer;
- placing the starting semiconductor structure in an etching chamber;
- inserting oxygen gas and plasma into the etching chamber after the placing such that one or more of the plurality of filler material lines are oxidized, the oxidized one or more of the plurality of filler material lines increasing in width;
- and
- etching the hard mask layer with a chemistry that is non-selective to the oxidized filler material lines and hard mask layer, and which has a stronger lateral etch selectivity to the oxidized filler material lines than the hard mask layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.