• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.145-145
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• 2008

High-k materials have been paid much more attention for their characteristics with high permittivity to reduce the leakage current through the scaled gate oxide. Among the high-k materials, $ZrO_2$ is one of the most attractive ones combing such favorable properties as a high dielectric constant (k= 20 ~ 25), wide band gap (5 ~ 7 eV) as well as a close thermal expansion coefficient with Si that results in good thermal stability of the $ZrO_2$/Si structure. During the etching process, plasma etching has been widely used to define fine-line patterns, selectively remove materials over topography, planarize surfaces, and trip photoresist. About the high-k materials etching, the relation between the etch characteristics of high-k dielectric materials and plasma properties is required to be studied more to match standard processing procedure with low damaged removal process. Among several etching techniques, we chose the inductively coupled plasma (ICP) for high-density plasma, easy control of ion energy and flux, low ownership and simple structure. And the $BCl_3$ was included in the gas due to the effective extraction of oxygen in the form of $BCl_xO_y$ compounds. During the etching process, the wafer surface temperature is an important parameter, until now, there is less study on temperature parameter. In this study, the etch mechanism of $ZrO_2$ thin film was investigated in function of $Cl_2$ addition to $BCl_3$/Ar gas mixture ratio, RF power and DC-bias power based on substrate temperature increased from $10^{\circ}C$ to $80^{\circ}C$. The variations of relative volume densities for the particles were measured with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The surface imagination was measured by scanning emission spectroscope (SEM). The chemical state of film was investigated using energy dispersive X-ray (EDX).

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.169-169
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• 2008

To keep pace with scaling trends of CMOS technologies, high-k metal oxides are to be introduced. Due to their high permittivity, high-k materials can achieve the required capacitance with stacks of higher physical thickness to reduce the leakage current through the scaled gate oxide, which make it become much more promising materials to instead of $SiO_2$. As further studying on high-k, an understanding of the relation between the etch characteristics of high-k dielectric materials and plasma properties is required for the low damaged removal process to match standard processing procedure. There are some reports on the dry etching of different high-k materials in ICP and ECR plasma with various plasma parameters, such as different gas combinations ($Cl_2$, $Cl_2/BCl_3$, $Cl_2$/Ar, $SF_6$/Ar, and $CH_4/H_2$/Ar etc). Understanding of the complex behavior of particles at surfaces requires detailed knowledge of both macroscopic and microscopic processes that take place; also certain processes depend critically on temperature and gas pressure. The choice of $BCl_3$ as the chemically active gas results from the fact that it is widely used for the etching o the materials covered by the native oxides due to the effective extraction of oxygen in the form of $BCl_xO_y$ compounds. In this study, the surface reactions and the etch rate of $Al_2O_3$ films in $BCl_3/Cl_2$/Ar plasma were investigated in an inductively coupled plasma(ICP) reactor in terms of the gas mixing ratio, RF power, DC bias and chamber pressure. The variations of relative volume densities for the particles were measured with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The surface imagination was measured by AFM and SEM. The chemical states of film was investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), which confirmed the existence of nonvolatile etch byproducts.