Selective etch for metal-containing materials

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9299582-B2
Application number	US-201414512973-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 13, 2014
Priority date	Nov 12, 2013
Publication date	Mar 29, 2016
Grant date	Mar 29, 2016

Abstract

Methods of selectively etching metal-containing materials from the surface of a substrate are described. The etch selectively removes metal-containing materials relative to silicon-containing films such as silicon, polysilicon, silicon oxide, silicon germanium and/or silicon nitride. The methods include exposing metal-containing materials to halogen containing species in a substrate processing region. A remote plasma is used to excite the halogen-containing precursor and a local plasma may be used in embodiments. Metal-containing materials on the substrate may be pretreated using moisture or another OH-containing precursor before exposing the resulting surface to remote plasma excited halogen effluents in embodiments.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of etching aluminum oxide, the method comprising:
flowing a gas-phase oxygen-hydrogen-containing precursor into the substrate processing region, wherein the gas-phase oxygen-and-hydrogen-containing precursor comprises an OH group;
flowing a halogen-containing precursor into a remote plasma region fluidly coupled to the substrate processing region while forming a remote plasma in the remote plasma region to produce plasma effluents, wherein the halogen-containing precursor comprises one or more precursors selected from the group consisting of atomic chlorine, atomic bromine, molecular bromine (Br 2 ), molecular chlorine (Cl 2 ), hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen bromide (HBr), boron tribromide (BBr 3 ), and boron trichloride (BCl 3 ); and
etching the aluminum oxide from a substrate by flowing the plasma effluents into the substrate processing region through through-holes in a showerhead, wherein the showerhead is disposed between the remote plasma region and the substrate processing chamber.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the halogen-containing precursor contains one of boron or carbon.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising forming a local plasma in the substrate processing region.

4. A method of etching aluminum oxide, the method comprising:
transferring a substrate into a substrate processing region of a substrate processing chamber, wherein the substrate comprises the aluminum oxide;
flowing a gas-phase oxygen-and-hydrogen-containing precursor into the substrate processing region, wherein the gas-phase oxygen-and-hydrogen-containing precursor comprises an OH group;
flowing a chlorine-containing precursor into a remote plasma region fluidly coupled to the substrate processing region while forming a remote plasma in the remote plasma region to produce plasma effluents; and
etching the aluminum oxide from the substrate by flowing the plasma effluents into the substrate processing region through through-holes in a showerhead.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the gas-phase oxygen-and-hydrogen-containing precursor reacts with the aluminum oxide to form Al(OH) 3 on the surface of the substrate.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the gas-phase oxygen-and-hydrogen-containing precursor is purged from the substrate processing region before the operation of flowing the plasma effluents into the substrate processing region.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein the chlorine-containing precursor comprises one or more of atomic chlorine, molecular chlorine (Cl 2 ), hydrogen chloride (HCl), or boron trichloride (BCl 3 ).

8. The method of claim 4 wherein a pressure in the substrate processing region is greater than 0.3 Torr during the operation of flowing the gas-phase oxygen-and-hydrogen-containing precursor into the substrate processing region.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Ingle Nitin K
• Kachian Jessica Sevanne
• Xu Lin
• Park Soonam
• Wang Xikun
• Anthis Jeffrey W

Classifications

• H10P70/273

  the processing being a delineation of conductive layers, e.g. by RIE · CPC title

• H10P50/285

  of materials not containing Si, e.g. PZT or Al2O3 · CPC title

• H10P50/283

  by chemical means · CPC title

• H10P50/267

  using plasmas · CPC title

• H10P50/266

  by vapour etching only · CPC title