It is known that sulfurhexafluoride (SF/sub 6/), used as an insulating gas in HV apparatus, will oxide in electrical discharges in the presence of oxygen or water vapor to form various reactive and stable by-products. In order to interpret experimental data on rates of oxidation and by product formation in discharges, meaningfully, it is necessary to apply theoretical chemical kinetics models that utilize rates for numerous gas-phase processes as functions of gas temperature and/or electric-field-to-gas-density ratio. Current knowledge about the fundamental collision processes involving electrons, ions, free radicals, and molecules needed to understand the gas-phase discharge chemistry in SF/sub 6/ is reviewed. Implications of the fundamental rate data reviewed here for recently proposed chemical-kinetics models of corona and glow-type discharges in SF/sub 6/ are discussed. >

Fundamental processes of SF/sub 6/ decomposition and oxidation in glow and corona discharges

Systems, chambers, and processes are provided for controlling process defects caused by moisture contamination. The systems may provide configurations for chambers to perform multiple operations in a vacuum or controlled environment. The chambers may include configurations to provide additional processing capabilities in combination chamber designs. The methods may provide for the limiting, prevention, and correction of aging defects that may be caused as a result of etching processes performed by system tools.

Processing systems and methods for halide scavenging

Methods of etching exposed titanium nitride with respect to other materials on patterned heterogeneous structures are described, and may include a remote plasma etch formed from a fluorine-containing precursor. Precursor combinations including plasma effluents from the remote plasma are flowed into a substrate processing region to etch the patterned structures with high titanium nitride selectivity under a variety of operating conditions. The methods may be used to remove titanium nitride at faster rates than a variety of metal, nitride, and oxide compounds.

Selective titanium nitride etching

Methods are described herein for etching metal films which are difficult to volatize. The methods include exposing a metal film to a chlorine-containing precursor (e.g. Cl 2 ). Chlorine is then removed from the substrate processing region. A carbon-and-nitrogen-containing precursor (e.g. TMEDA) is delivered to the substrate processing region to form volatile metal complexes which desorb from the surface of the metal film. The methods presented remove metal while very slowly removing the other exposed materials. A thin metal oxide layer may be present on the surface of the metal layer, in which case a local plasma from hydrogen may be used to remove the oxygen or amorphize the near surface region, which has been found to increase the overall etch rate.

Oxide and metal removal

A method of etching exposed silicon-and-carbon-containing material on patterned heterogeneous structures is described and includes a remote plasma etch formed from a fluorine-containing precursor and an oxygen-containing precursor. Plasma effluents from the remote plasma are flowed into a substrate processing region where the plasma effluents react with the exposed regions of silicon-and-carbon-containing material. The plasmas effluents react with the patterned heterogeneous structures to selectively remove silicon-and-carbon-containing material from the exposed silicon-and-carbon-containing material regions while very slowly removing other exposed materials. The silicon-and-carbon-containing material selectivity results partly from the presence of an ion suppression element positioned between the remote plasma and the substrate processing region. The ion suppression element reduces or substantially eliminates the number of ionically-charged species that reach the substrate. The methods may be used to selectively remove silicon-and-carbon-containing material at more than twenty times the rate of silicon oxide.

Dry-etch for silicon-and-carbon-containing films

Usinage par plasma par des decharges dans des composes fluores en presence d'oxygene. Influence de l'oxygene sur la vitesse d'attaque. Application a la fabrication de VLSI

C. C. Tang

Papers

Tungsten Etching in CF 4 and SF 6 Discharges

Study on machining characteristics of VUV-MF assisted WEDM-LS based on flow field and temperature field analysis