AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Nanomanufacturing Science and Technology Focus Topic Monday Sessions
       Session NM+NS+MS+EM-MoA

Invited Paper NM+NS+MS+EM-MoA2
Enabling ALD for Semiconductor Manufacturing

Monday, October 29, 2012, 2:20 pm, Room 16

Session: ALD and Scalable Processes for Nanomanufacturing
Presenter: D. Chu, Applied Materials Inc.
Correspondent: Click to Email
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is being extensively studied for semiconductor applications because of its precise, atomic level thickness control for very thin films; ALD is extremely conformal and the overall thermal budget is lower than its CVD alternatives. However, ALD is inherently slow which makes it cost prohibitive.

Adoption of ALD processes into manufacturing requires consideration of multiple factors. At Applied Materials, we focus on three main areas to enable ALD for volume manufacturing.

1. Atomic level engineering to create differentiated solutions that boost device performance.

2. Tool architecture and methods to allow integration of multiple films without vacuum break. This is particularly of importance when films scale to Angstrom level, stability of the film becomes an issue. Extendable tool architectures allow integration of other films such as capping layers and pre-post treatments to address this issue

3. Accelerate adoption of standalone ALD films by improving manufacturability and productivity while maintaining single wafer performance

Example applications and challenges for each area will be discussed in this paper.