Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Differential fluid etching apparatus – With microwave gas energizing means
Reexamination Certificate
2003-04-08
2004-09-28
Hassanzadeh, Parviz (Department: 1763)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Differential fluid etching apparatus
With microwave gas energizing means
C118S7230MW
Reexamination Certificate
active
06797112
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to plasma treatment technology for making a source gas into a plasma and carrying out treatments such as etching, ashing, film deposition, and sputtering etc. on a surface of a solid material such as a semiconductor with physical or chemical mutual reaction of activated particles. In particular, the present invention relates to a plasma treatment apparatus effective for etching a gate or metal during the course of manufacturing a semiconductor device (semiconductor integrated circuit device).
RELATED ART
Conventionally, with regard to a plasma treatment apparatus, for the purpose of improving uniformity or stability of plasma for treatment on the surface of a semiconductor material, the following constructions are known.
(a) A plasma treatment apparatus which comprises a dielectric window for introduction of electromagnetic waves into a chamber evacuated to low pressure, and for which size and shape of an opening of dielectric window to the side of the chamber evacuated to low pressure, that is, size and shape of the chamber evacuated to low pressure immediately below the dielectric window is stipulated.
For example, JP-A-11-111696 specification discloses the relationship between size and shape of an opening of a rectangular dielectric window to the side of the chamber evacuated to low pressure and frequency of electromagnetic waves. In addition, JP-A-10-199699 specification discloses the relationship between size and shape of an opening of a circular dielectric window to the side of the chamber evacuated to low pressure and frequency of electromagnetic wave.
(b) A plasma treatment apparatus which comprises a dielectric window for introduction of electromagnetic wave into inside a chamber evacuated to low pressure and an antenna of a disk type, a ring type, and a slot type etc. toward the atmosphere side of the dielectric window, and for which size and shape of the antenna is stipulated.
For example, JP-A-2000-164392 specification discloses the relationship between size and shape of an antenna of a ring type comprised in the atmosphere side of the dielectric window and frequency of electro-magnetic wave. In addition, JP-A-2000-223298 specification discloses the relationship between size and shape of an antenna of a slot type comprised in the atmosphere side of the dielectric window and frequency of electromagnetic wave.
In addition, JP-A-2000-77384 specification, for example, discloses a plasma treatment apparatus related to both of the above described (a) and (b), and control of uniformity of plasma by way of ratio of size and shape of an antenna of a circular type comprised in the atmosphere side of the dielectric window to size and shape of an opening of a circular dielectric window to the side of the chamber evacuated to low pressure.
(c) A plasma treatment method which comprises inside a chamber evacuated to low pressure an antenna for introduction of electromagnetic wave into inside the chamber evacuated to low pressure, and for which size and shape of the antenna is stipulated. For example, JP-A-2000-268994 specification discloses the relationship between size and shape of an antenna comprised inside a chamber evacuated to low pressure and frequency of electromagnetic wave. In addition, JP-A-10-134995 specification discloses the relationship between size and shape of an antenna comprised inside a chamber evacuated to low pressure, which includes the case where walls of a chamber evacuated to low pressure are regarded as a part of an antenna and frequency of electromagnetic wave.
(d) A plasma treatment apparatus for which size and shape of a periphery part of a dielectric window for introduction of electromagnetic wave into inside a chamber evacuated to low pressure or structure and material quality thereof is stipulated.
For example, JP-A-3-68771 specification discloses a plasma treatment apparatus in which a microwave absorber is caused to be equipped in the final end of a microwave transmission line.
Moreover, JP-A-11-354502 specification, for example, discloses a plasma treatment apparatus related to both of the above described (c) and (d), and relationship between the end of the antenna and shape/size of a grounding part with respect to function of the periphery part of the antenna comprised inside the chamber evacuated to low pressure. In addition, JP-A-2000-357683 specification discloses relationship between the end of the antenna and shape/size of a electromagnetic wave corrector made of metal or dielectric with respect to function of the periphery part of the antenna comprised inside the chamber evacuated to low pressure.
In recent years, improvement in uniform treatment performance inside semiconductor wafers with large diameter (300 mm&phgr; or more) is demanded in plasma treatment utilized for manufacturing semiconductor integrated circuit apparatus, so-called LSI (Large Scale Integrated Circuit). In addition, a wide range of application to the following processing steps in an LSI manufacturing process are demanded.
(1) An application to an etching step that can go with micronization with high anisotropy and selectivity, targeting processing of a gate electrode, a metal film or an insulating film.
(2) An application to an anti-reflective film processing step such as BARC (Bottom Anti-Reflective Coating) etc. prior to the above described etching step and a processing step of a hard mask made of film oxide or film nitride etc.
(3) An application to a trimming step for controlling size of a mask prior to the above described etching step.
(4) An application to a step of processing a trench for device split or a gate side wall spacer that is regarded to require a wide range of controllability on such as angle or shape or roundness, etc.
(5) An application to film deposition step that is regarded to require a wide range of condition setting such as pressure range etc.
(6) An application to a step (post-treatment step) to remove resist and etching remains (etching residue) as well as damage layer after etching treatment.
(7) An application to sputtering.
In particular, just the etching step (etching step including primary gate processing as well as before and after that processing) related to forming of a gate of an MOS transistor may include a lot of steps covering the above described trench processing, anti-reflective film processing, mask processing, processing of making a trimmed mask accompanied hereby, processing of the gate itself, and spacer processing thereafter and an apparatus that has all-round ability enabling to carry out all of them is being demanded.
In addition, due to recent demand for small-amount multi-species production, and also from necessity of application to an LSI such as a system LSI in which a plurality of device structures are mounted in a mixed fashion on the same wafer, extremely highly uniform plasma generation is regarded necessary for processing a wafer with large diameter within a wide condition ranges of 0.1 Pa to 10 Pa in terms of processing pressure, 0.3 to 3 mA/cm
2
in terms of ion incident current flux to a wafer with respect to various gas seeds.
The present inventors identified the problems with the existing plasma treatment apparatus in the course of developing the present invention. Those problems will be described below with reference to FIG.
17
and
FIG. 18
, although those figures pertain to an apparatus considered by the inventors in the course of developing the present invention.
FIG. 17
is a schematic view of a plasma treatment apparatus that the inventors considered. This plasma treatment apparatus comprises a chamber evacuated to low pressure (chamber)
206
shaped as a cylinder on which an object for processing, such as a wafer
200
, is disposed.
FIG. 17
shows a right half sectional view in the radius direction from the center to the outer periphery of this chamber
206
.
According to this plasma treatment apparatus, a dielectric window consisting of a quartz plate
202
and a quartz shower plate
203
is provided in a position facing a wafer stage
Goto Yasunori
Itabashi Naoshi
Kofuji Naoyuki
Hassanzadeh Parviz
Hitachi , Ltd.
Miles & Stockbridge P.C.
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