The plasma deposition apparatus developed in this study can realize a deposition of dense and high quality thin films, such as Si3N4 and SiO2, without the need for substrate heating. It does this by enhancing the plasma excitation efficiency at low gas pressures (10-4 Torr) and by the acceleration effect of ions with moderate energies (10 to 20 eV), using a microwave ECR (Electron Cyclotron Resonance) excited plasma, and a plasma stream extraction onto the specimen table by a divergent magnetic field method. The Si3N4 and SiO2 films deposited are comparable to those prepared by high temperature CVD and thermal oxidation, respectively, in evaluations such as by buffered HF solution etch rate measurement.

Articles you may be interested inPlasma enhanced direct current planar magnetron sputtering technique employing a twinned microwave electron cyclotron resonance plasma source

A novel electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) processing apparatus has been developed to improve processing uniformity by adjusting the plasma refractive index determined by the magnetic field distribution in the ECR plasma chamber. With SiO2 deposition, an excellent uniformity of ±1% for six-inch wafers and ±2% for eight-inch wafers has been obtained. The conditions required for specimen processing, such as perpendicular ion incidence, can be selected independently of uniformity because uniformity is controlled only at the plasma generation region. This method can also be applied to other ECR techniques, such as ECR ion-stream etching.

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Using electron cyclotron resonance plasma deposition, we have developed an SiO x film as an antireflective layer (ARL) for the gate process of LSI fabrication by i-line and KrF lithography. The ARL is an absorption type and is 100 nm thick. The estimated optimum optical properties of the ARL for i-line were n=2.3–2.6 and k=0.5–0.6. For KrF, they were n=1.8–2.1 and k=0.5–0.6. An SiO x film having these properties can be reproducibly deposited at SiH4/O2 gas flow rate ratio of 1.3 for i-line and 1.1 for KrF. The chemical compositions of the films are SiO0.5 for i-line and SiO1.0 for KrF. The SiO0.5 film was used as an i-line ARL for 0.35-µ m LSI gate fabrication and superior process performance and sufficient critical dimension controllability (variation within 19 nm of 3σ) were obtained.

A novel ECR processing apparatus has been developed. Processing uniformity can be improved by controlling the magnetic field distribution in the ECR plasma chamber. Excellent uniformity of.+t% on six-inch wafers and +ZVo on eight-inch wafers has been obtained for SiO, deposition. The conditions required for the specimen processing, such as ion peqpendicular incidenc{ can be decided independently of uniformity control because the uniformity is controlled only in the plasma generation region. This method can be also applied to ECR ion-stream etching.

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