A semiconductor substrate having thereon a surface including features to be filled is placed in a vacuum chamber having a high density plasma source and a target of material to be deposited. A vacuum is drawn, and a plasma is struck in a gas by means of the high density plasma source. The substrate is then biased to cause ions from the plasma to bombard the substrate with energies sufficient to facet top corners of features on the surface of the substrate. After a desired amount of faceting has occurred, the target is biased to cause ions from the plasma to sputter the target, resulting in a plasma comprised of target material and the gas. The substrate is then biased sufficiently to provide a near perpendicular flow of ions of target material to the substrate, but at sufficiently low energy to deposit a film of the material to be deposited. The substrate bias may be held sufficiently high to prevent or reduce buildup on the facets. The substrate bias may be adjusted during the deposition process to allow increased deposition on the facets. Alternatively, the target may be biased from the start, resulting in formation of a plasma comprised of both the gas and the material to be deposited. Ions from this plasma may then be used to first facet the surface of the substrate by employing a high negative substrate bias, then to deposit a film of the material to be deposited by employing a lower negative substrate bias.
The film thickness of a thin film formed on substrate 14 is made symmetrical and uniform by eliminating currents of gas over target 9 by performing film deposition in a condition with gas supply and vacuum evacuation cut off, after adjusting the interior of vacuum chamber 1 to the predetermined pressure.
A method for insitu performing a cleaning operation along with a physical sputtering operation begins by placing a wafer (26) into a chamber (12). A plasma (30) is generated within the chamber (12) using an inert, noble, or reducing gas. The gas is ionized to form ions (32) within the plasma (30). Power is provided to various components (16, 22, and 24) within the chamber (12) to ensure that the ions (32) are accelerated towards the wafer (26) during first stages of wafer processing. This acceleration of the ions (32) towards the wafer (26) will clean a surface of the wafer (26). Following this cleaning operation, power supplied within the chamber (12) is altered to accelerate the ions (32) into a reverse direction so that the ions (32) impact a sputter target (20). Due to ionic bombardment of the target (20), a material is sputtered onto a clean surface of the wafer (26) in an insitu manner.
The present invention generally provides a copper metallization method for depositing a conformal barrier layer and seed layer in a plasma chamber. The barrier layer and seed layer are preferably deposited in a plasma chamber having an inductive coil and a target comprising the material to be sputtered. One or more plasma gases having high molar masses relative to the target material are then introduced into the chamber to form a plasma. Preferably, the plasma gases are selected from xenon, krypton or a combination thereof.
A modified facet is disclosed to prevent blown gate oxide and increase etch chamber life. The modified facet etch is a two-stage process. The first stage is a plasma sputter etch to form a facet profile. The first stage etch is terminated prior to reaching the target depth for the etching process. The second stage etch is a reactive ion etch which directionally follows the facet profile to reach the target depth.
A modified facet etch is disclosed to prevent blown gate oxide and increase etch chamber life. The modified facet etch is a two-stage process. The first stage is a plasma sputter etch to form a facet profile. The first stage etch is terminated prior to reaching the target depth for the etching process. The second stage etch is a reactive ion etch which directionally follows the facet profile to reach the target depth.
