Study of the impact of the time-delay effect on the critical dimension of a tungsten silicide/polysilicon gate after reactive ion etching Magnetic field optimization in a dielectric magnetically enhanced reactive ion etch reactor to produce an instantaneously uniform plasma A constant concern in semiconductor manufacturing is plasma induced damage. A non-uniform etching plasma can induce a dc current at the wafer surface that can damage the film and therefore the device. The magnetic field in an Applied Materials magnetically enhanced reactive ion etch chamber has been enhanced to provide minimal self-bias non-uniformity. The objective of this article is to characterize the magnetic field through a comparison of experimental etch data and modeling. Both analytical and empirical modeling have been used to gain a better understanding of the particular magnetic field configuration under investigation. At low pressure the etch rate pattern correlated well with the calculated stationary magnetic field gradient. For higher pressure this model failed to predict the etch rate uniformity behavior because of contributions from other effects in the plasma. In order to characterize these effects, experiments were conducted for both stationary and rotating magnetic fields. This was done to aid process optimization with respect to the potential for damage.
A tunable resonant-cavity microwave plasma disk source is applied to etching very large scale integrated circuit compatible profiles in crystalline silicon. Anisotropic etching downstream from the plasma is demonstrated without the use of large, potentially damaging wafer biases. Etch rate and degree of anisotropy are determined as a function of process chamber pressure, microwave power, and wafer bias. Etch rates from 200 to 490 Å/min and degrees of anisotropy approaching 0.9 are obtained for pressures from 0.3 to 2 mTorr. Microwave power is varied from 150 to 200 W, and the wafer bias is varied from −10 to −50 V with a flowing mixture of 16 standard cm3/min (sccm)of CF4 and 4 sccm O2. Results are discussed in terms of simple microwave plasma etching theory and previously reported plasma characteristics.
Many applications requiring high beam currents and operation with chemically active gases impose lifetime and operational requirements on the discharge electrodes in conventional ion sources. Despite the development of specially designed hot filaments and hollow cathodes, the presence of these electrodes in the discharge zone still limits the practical application of ion and plasma sources. Thus, the development of an efficient, simple, electrodeless discharge would result in an important improvement in ion beam and plasma processing technology. Recently, an electrodeless microwave ion source and plasma source have been developed. An improvement of this ion source is discussed. This is the redesign to surround the discharge zone with many closely spaced rare earth magnets producing a confining and cyclotron resonant multicusp static magnetic field. The experimental performance of this ‘‘modified’’ ion source using argon gas is presented. Experimental measurements of extracted ion beam current versus accelerating voltage and discharge electron and ion densities, etc. are presented over a range of gas flow rates and operating pressures.
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