Flowable carbon for semiconductor processing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9514932-B2
Application number	US-201313942874-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 16, 2013
Priority date	Aug 8, 2012
Publication date	Dec 6, 2016
Grant date	Dec 6, 2016

Abstract

Methods are described for forming flowable carbon layers on a semiconductor substrate. A local excitation (such as a hot filament in hot wire CVD, a plasma in PECVD or UV light) may be applied as described herein to a silicon-free carbon-containing precursor containing a hydrocarbon to form a flowable carbon-containing film on a substrate. A remote excitation method has also been found to produce flowable carbon-containing films by exciting a stable precursor to produce a radical precursor which is then combined with unexcited silicon-free carbon-containing precursors in the substrate processing region.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of forming a silicon-free carbon-containing layer on a semiconductor substrate inside a substrate processing region within a chemical vapor deposition chamber, the method comprising:
flowing a silicon-free carbon-containing precursor to the substrate processing region, wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor comprises a hydrocarbon;
reacting the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor in the substrate processing region to deposit a flowable silicon-free carbon-containing layer on the substrate, wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing layer is flowable as deposited on a surface of the semiconductor substrate and formed from the reacted silicon-free carbon-containing precursor, and wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing layer comprises C—H bonds.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a temperature of the semiconductor substrate is below or about 400° C. during deposition of the flowable silicon-free carbon-containing layer on the substrate.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein a temperature of the semiconductor substrate is below or about 200° C. during deposition of the flowable silicon-free carbon-containing layer on the substrate.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing layer consists of carbon and hydrogen.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing layer consists of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing layer consists of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor consists of carbon and hydrogen.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor consists of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor consists of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor consists of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor contains no fluorine.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor comprises an alkane, an alkene or an alkyne, methane, ethane, ethylene, acetylene, propane, propene, propyne, butane, butene, butyne, hexane, hexene, hexyne, heptane, heptene, heptyne, octane, octene, octyne, an aromatic hydrocarbon, benzene, toluene, xylene, mesitylene, phenol, anisole, cresol, furan, aniline, pyridine, pyrrole, a ketone, an imine or an ester.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein reacting the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor in the substrate processing region to deposit a flowable silicon-free carbon-containing layer on the substrate further comprises exciting the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor in a local plasma in the substrate processing region.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the local plasma has a local plasma power of between 3 Watts and 100 Watts.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor is flowed to the substrate processing region through a showerhead, and wherein a distance between the showerhead and the substrate is between 0.4″ and 1.5″.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor is reacted with a hot wire or filament within the chemical vapor deposition chamber.

17. A method of forming a silicon-free carbon-containing layer on a semiconductor substrate, the method comprising:
flowing a silicon-free hydrocarbon precursor into a substrate processing region;
reacting the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor in the substrate processing region to deposit a silicon-free layer on a substrate, wherein the silicon-free carbon-containing layer produced by the reacted silicon-free carbon-containing precursor is flowable as deposited on a surface of the substrate, and wherein the reacting operation comprises a plasma-free reaction comprising a hot wire filament or UV treatment.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the silicon-free layer comprises at least 85% carbon by atomic concentration.

19. The method of claim 17 , wherein the silicon-free hydrocarbon precursor is selected from the group consisting of ethylene, acetylene, and toluene.

20. The method of claim 17 , wherein the flowable characteristic of the as deposited film is caused by a removal of ionized species from an at least partial de-excitation of the silicon-free carbon-containing precursor subsequent the reacting operation.

Assignees

• Applied Mat
• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Mallick Abhijit Basu
• Ingle Nitin K

Classifications

• C23C16/26 Primary

  Deposition of carbon only · CPC title

• H10P74/203

  Structural properties, e.g. testing or measuring thicknesses, line widths, warpage, bond strengths or physical defects · CPC title

• H10P74/23

  characterised by multiple measurements, corrections, marking or sorting processes · CPC title

• H10P14/6902

  composed of carbon, e.g. alpha-C, diamond or hydrogen doped carbon · CPC title

• H10P14/6338

  the reactions being activated by other means than plasma or thermal, e.g. photo-CVD · CPC title