| AVS 60th International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Thin Film | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session TF+VT-WeM |
| Session: | Thin Film Permeation Barriers and Encapsulation |
| Presenter: | I.-S. Kim, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea |
| Authors: | I.-S. Kim, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea J. Park, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea J.H. Lee, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea M.J. Kim, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea Y.B. Choi, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea H.-G. Kim, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea S.H. Lee, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea J.W. Hong, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea J.L. Lee, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea M.W. Kim, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea G. Choi, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea H.-K. Kang, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea E.S. Jung, Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., South Korea |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Amorphous carbon layer (ACL) has been introduced to the hard mask material for dry etch process under sub 20 nm devices, due to the optical transparency, easy removal and proper mechanical properties. With the shrinkage of device scales, thickness uniformity of hard mask is critically related to the next etch performance, such as etch depth or profile uniformity. Furthermore, in case of thicker ACL deposition for high aspect ratio etch process, the arc discharge is frequently occurred due to the high conductivity of carbon film.
In this study, ACL was deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), which consists of capacitive coupled plasma(CCP) at 13.56 MHz, by using the propylene(C3H6_Carbon source). The multi-zone gas distributor and partially controlled heater were applied to control the surface profile, resulting in ~1% of thickness uniformity. In addition, the thickness profile was freely controlled from convex surface to concave surface shape, which results in easier and better process integrations for the following etch steps.
During the thick ACL (over 1μm) deposition, the arcing discharge is frequently occurred inside chamber and damaged to the wafers or hardware of equipment. The arc discharge was effectively controlled by introducing various ground paths and modified hardware. As the ground paths were integrated into the chamber, the RMS voltage which is applied to the chamber was decreased while the RMS current was increased. As a result, these tendencies induced to the decrease of impedance in process plasma, avoiding arc discharges. Not only more stable glow discharge is generated, also process efficiency is improved.