"But what ... is it good for?

"—
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM,
1968, commenting on the microchip.

RECENT TRENDS IN 300-MM PLASMA EQUIPMENT

Georgy K. Vinogradov
FOI Corporation
6-38-28, KAMI-ASAO, ASAO -KU, KAWASAKI, 215-0021 JAPAN
vinogradov@foi.co.jp

Introduction on existing equipment and well-integrated processes.

Semiconductor equipment manufacturing is a
multi-billion dollar business strongly connected to
the markets of semiconductor devices and consumer
electronics through the fastest feedback loops
keeping them altogether. Since the manufacturers are
targeting exclusively their investors and customers,
“confidential” design and process characteristics are
zealously hidden from competitors and the public.
Industrial exhibitors screen visitors not to allow
competitors chances for a glance at demo machines
or process data. Therefore, it is rather difficult to
obtain solid references reviewing modern 300-mm
equipment.
A whole set of 300-mm equipment is available in
the market and several production lines made
operational start in the last three-four years
worldwide: Trecenti Technology (Hitachi), UMC,
Infineon, SONY Semiconductor, Micron, TSMC,
Philips Semiconductor-STMicroelectronics, IBM,
Texas Instruments, Intel, Samsung and others [1].
However, 300-mm machines shipped to R&D labs
operate conventionally with 200-mm wafers saving
Therefore, there is typical conservatism: no major
change in process technologies. Devices manufactures
demand similar, if not “same”, processes and
conditions for 300-mm tools. Therefore, the 300-mm
are mainly just scaled-up versions of 200-mm tools. In
this sense, there is no trend between 200- and 300-mm.
Different logic works for new materials, for example,
copper and a variety of Low-k. New processes must be
developed and delivered with new equipment. Such
model was practiced during the 200-mm span
exhibiting remarkable change in the balance of process
development loads between the device and equipment
manufacturers. Process development cooperation is to
be highly respected by all parties for mutual benefits.
Still, at even higher level of complexity, the
development moves mainly by a thorny path of trial
and errors. There are very few things among the basic
scientific ideas, which can be affected. In contrast,
there are much more unexpected and unclear
material/design factors affecting process technology.
That is why we discuss here more finalized
commercial solutions and less laboratory and patent
curiosities.
Plasma Etching Equipment
For the last three decades etching equipment is the
arena driving advanced plasma technology
development [2]. Other equipment: PVD, CVD,
cleaning, ashing, etc. use plasma techniques usually
after etchers in terms of plasma sources. Chemical
aspects of numerous plasma technologies represent
special subjects.
Every etcher accumulates substantial engineering
and process know-how rather than science. There is
enough room for R&D art just because of a great
complexity of machines and processes and
abundance of not yet tested combinations of well-
and hardly-known ideas.
There is basic similarity between different kinds of
plasma processing equipment considering process
chambers. Any chamber has its plasma source
converting electric power into the electric fields
generating fast free electrons, which start ionization,
excitation and dissociation of gas particles, surface
bombardment, not saying about a number of
secondary phenomena like modification and erosion
of surfaces, deposition and material transfer, ageing,
dust particles, arcing. The set of the basic processes is
determined by the regularities of plasma physics and
chemistry. Then what constitutes the main differences
of plasma sources and process chambers?
There are two kind of plasma processes: isotropic
and anizotropic, and hence, two kinds of process
chambers applying isotropic and anizotropic active
media to wafers. The isotropic, is almost electrically
neutral highly-dissociated gas or free radicals, which
does not generate electric currents into the wafers.
The second one, anizotropic, is electrically highly
active. It is aimed to supply not only neutrals but also
electrically charged particles (positive ions) with
predetermined kinetic energy and directionality onto
the wafer. We consider anizotropic etchers.
A pitfall to be avoided is pure technical consideration
of industrial equipment, which is basically highly
competing commercial products, where economical
parameters are as important as technical merits.
Recently, 300-mm equipment reveals several
converging tendencies.
Firstly, the price margins for different classes of
etchers are becoming narrower well before approaching
any maturity under very tense economic conditions.
Secondly, the huge price gap between high-end
etchers and, for example, advanced single-wafer ashers,
is shrinking.
Thirdly, hardware platforms in terms of basic
mandatory components are becoming similar: ashers
are getting turbo pumps, some etchers –
high-temperature platens, modular design leads to more
customizable tools.
Fourthly, large companies, manufacturing wide range
of equipment, acquire small, one-sector players. It
changes not only competition but also affects hardware
design, in particular cluster tools.
The tendencies are supported by unavoidable
maturity curve driving semiconductor industry into the
21st century, where the number of equipment
manufacturers is decreasing.
300-mm etchers
There are two approaches to classify etching tools:
considering plasma sources or principal applications.
Since they are meaningful and interconnected, both
should be taken into account.
The majority of 300-mm machines available in the
market are scaled up from 200-mm with minor
modifications. Therefore, the parallel-plate capacitive
systems from two major vendors: AMAT (Applied
Materials, USA) and TEL (Tokyo Electron, Japan)
are still the main working horses well known to
device manufacturers. LAM Research Corporation
(USA), known for pioneering pancake inductive
plasma sources, manufactures RIE capacitive tools
for oxide/dielectric etch as well. Microwave etchers,
for example, Hitachi’s ECR, also entered into the
300-mm competition. It is in the minority and not
considered here.
In spite of incredibly high R&D activity in the last
two decades around flat inductive plasma sources,
they failed yet to replace capacitive etchers.
Moreover, they practically did not enter into the most
difficult market sector of oxide etch.
AMAT and LAM sell inductive etchers for
polysilicon, metal, and some minor application.
AMAT, having the largest number of printed patent
pages and claims on inductive sources, is now
manufacturing tools with a dual-coil source mounted
above a flat or dome-shaped chamber roof.
There are several improvements in the process
chambers aimed to increase selectivity and suppress
particles and contamination. Silicon roofs were
inserted in several etchers. Not only roofs but also
silicon or SiC/SiOC walls of oxide etchers were
introduced in some cases. Hot wall of the process
chambers and better temperature control is a must as
well. However, such particular solutions do not touch
anyway basic structures of plasma processing units.
In order to reveal definite trends in the plasma
sources, we have to consider much longer
development term and some basic principles.
Why capacitive is good?
This long-liver has two principal advantages over
other discharges. First: it is the anisotropic discharge
exited by very uniform (equipotential metal electrode)
electric field perpendicular to the wafer surface. The
anisotropic etch was discovered in this discharge.
Second, the capacitive plasma generated by a uniform
flat electric capacitive sheath is perfectly conformal to
the wafer. It is the only discharge mechanism, which
does it so simply, precisely and cheaply. It is why
capacitive discharges were the first and main plasma
processing tools from early seventies. This is the secret
of their long life. This is a reason why other etchers
using a variety of discharges have so called RF-bias. In
fact, it is never only a ‘bias’ for accelerating ions.
Almost always it is a capacitive discharge near the
wafer surface. It not only affects the kinetic energy of
existing positive ions, it generates own sheath plasma.
The mandatory RF-bias on the wafer substantially
decreases but does not eliminate the difference between
plasma sources. The intrinsic features of parallel-plate
capacitive discharges, flatness and very narrow
inter-electrode gap, could not be realized with inductive
sources until very recently.
Where is a limit?
Capacitive discharges have some drawbacks. First,
they are very sensitive to the gas pressure and power.
This is because of a self-consistent nature of the double
electric sheath: it tunes itself depending on the gas
pressure and the RF power and tends to shrink or
spread along the surface instead of changing local
parameters. Second, they are all non-uniform at the gap
edge. Therefore, so-called guard rings are always used
in etchers but do not always mitigate the edge
non-uniformity. Third, capacitive discharges are
difficult to sustain belo w about 10-mTorr gas
pressure, where the recent process trend goes to.
Conventional capacitive discharges used one and
then two RF frequencies for three decades. One,
higher frequency, which is usually about 13.56 MHz,
is applied to the top electrode (“anode”), while
another, lower frequency, about 0.1-4 MHz, is
applied to the bottom wafer electrode (“cathode”).
The basic trends of capacitive discharges are as
follow. First add one more frequency in order to
separately excite main plasma discharge and the bias
sheath: done in seventies. Second, increase the higher
frequency in order to maintain the discharge at lower
and lower pressures. 300-mm capacitive etchers
come to 27; 60; and even 100 MHz RF. This way
capacitive etchers achieve the pressures limit down to
about 20 mTorr and higher plasma density.
The limit of this frequency trend is the wavelength
or transmission-line problem. A hundred megahertz
RF field has about 0.7 m quarter wavelength in free
space. Therefore, RF voltage along the radius of a
300-mm wafer surface is changing essentially. This is
a source of electrical non-uniformity, and hence,
wafer’s damage even without mentioning the edge
problems. Hence, it is hardly possible, that simple
capacitive parallel plate structure continues beyond
300 mm.
Oxide etch
Advanced silicon oxide etch is performed by
capacitive etchers since this process uses
fluorocarbon deposition mechanism accompanied by
intensive ion bombardment. Oxide etchers are
strong-bias narrow-gap machines with particularly
low gas residence time (down to a few milliseconds)
in order to achieve best quality. There were no new
narrow-gap etchers except capacitive in the market yet.
However, this status is about to change.
High-density plasma low-pressure etchers
Inductive coupled plasma (ICP) sources have a long
history and variety of applications such as powerful
free-radical or ion generators and atmospheric plasma
torches. ICP sources easily generate high-density
plasmas. The problem of their application to the wafer
processing is their basic radial non-uniformity, which
determines development trends.
About a decade ago, flat inductive plasma sources
occupied plasma laboratories []. It was accepted as a
long-awaited revolution in plasma equipment. Flat roof
inductive etchers have been built and tested. However,
they were large-gap plasma sources, because, of the
intrinsic radial non-uniformity. It appeared later that
large spiral inductive coils add substantial azimuthal
non-uniformity caused by transmission-line and
capacitive coupling effects. No one of them entered the
“prohibited garden” of advanced oxide etch.
Very popular in laboratories single-turn ICP sources
are not suitable. A narrow-gap single-coil inductive
discharge produces about a circular footprint on the
wafer. That is why there were several patents issued for
multi-coil sources. In a dual-coil source, the center
smaller coil increases plasma density, which otherwise
is too low for a 300-mm wafer size. However, two coils
are not enough for a narrow-gap etcher.
A large gap is unavoidable with several separate
coils, because the coils do not strictly define the
position of plasma generation in the flat-roof systems
and strongly interact. A multi-turn spiral coil does not
generate a sheath-plasma like a capacitive electrode just
because of different kind of symmetry of the electric
fields in these discharges.
 Consequently, the main problem and development
trend of inductive plasma sources was toward
high-density uniform plasma in a narrower gap.
Major ICP sources (LAM, AMAT) have at least
about 100 -mm discharge gap. However, the problem
TM
was solved in a GROOVY ICP plasma source
developed by FOI (Future Oriented Instruments,
Japan) Corporation.
GROOVY ICP: narrow-gap inductive plasma
source
GROOVY ICP source consists of two (200-mm)
to three (300-mm) or four (450-mm) inductive coils
built into the outside grooves in the flat dielectric or
silicon roof and surrounding inside groves enclosing
separate inductive plasma toroids. The separation of
plasma generation zones between the grooves allows
one to independently control plasma toroids avoiding
collapsing into one plasma generation area. The
collapse inevitably happens at the flat roofs of
conventional inductive sources.
The flat grooved roof makes a discharge gap of
about 40 mm, which is typical for advanced
capacitive oxide etchers. GROOVY generates
stable discharge in a wide pressure range of about
(0.5-1000) mTorr. This source is considered as the
only inductive candidate for below 100 nm deep
oxide etch. It shows an aspect ratio of about 20,
selectivity to resist of about 7, for 80 nm via etch
with typical uniformity of about 3% (range) over
300-mm wafers.
Low-k materials
The well-known merits of ICP sources over the
capacitively coupled are their ability to operate at
very low RF-bias voltage, very low gas pressure, and
high plasma density. Inductive discharges have wider
process range required by a variety of Low-k materials
from inorganic Si-containing films to organic polymers.
So far, there is nothing special in etching of organic
Low-k but essential problems of selectivity to resist and
difficult combination of hard mask and intermediate
inorganic layers: SiO2, SiOC, or SiC. Hence, Low-k
processing tools must be capable for different
chemistries in the same chamb er. One of the options is
hydrogen or ammonia plasma for etching and/or
material stabilization. Sidewall damage is the main
issue for the materials sensitive to free-radicals.
Consequently, low-pressure, low-temperature, and
short-time processing is the major trend.
Wide -gap inductive etchers
Inductive (wide-gap) etchers for polysilicon and
metal compete successfully with traditional capacitive
etchers. Etching of metals having non-volatile halides
(FeRAM, MRAM applications) represents very special
art, where the machine maintenance issues play
substantially important role in evaluation, because of
heavy deposition in the chambers. So far, there is no
market for 300-mm equipment, but is expected to
emerge in the near future.
Electrical damage issues
Electrical damage to processing devices mainly
come from process /discharge non-uniformities, which
are determined, in turn, by capacitive current/voltage
non-uniformities in the process chambers. Such
non-uniformities have several causes: edges of
capacitive platen/guard rings; non -uniformity of
conductive parts; asymmetric capacitive return
currents; parasitic local discharges and arcing;
capacitive coupling from ICP coils; etc.. These
problems persisted from 200-mm prototypes but are
even worsened because of increases size of pumping
ports, windows, and shutters .
Moreover, 300-mm equipment needs better
discharge uniformity than 200-mm for the following
reason. It is well known that a wafer provides a short
electric path between dielectric structures and
therefore, damage voltage applied to the devices
depends on the maximum voltage (potential)
differences. At the same constant gradient of
electric potential along the wafer surface, the voltage
difference between two distant points may become
about 1.5 times higher for 300-mm wafers. Therefore,
200-mm damage sensors are not perfectly suitable for
300-mm damage tests.
One of the common trends mitigating discharge
non-uniformities is dielectric or semiconductor
insulation of the process chamber walls contacting
active plasma. It is troublesome and difficult art
affecting RF capacitive bias and discharge ignition.
Process chambers have oxidized aluminum, alumina,
SiC, Si, SiOC, or quartz liners of high purity.
The discharge ignition damages can be more
severe in 300-mm equipment because of much higher
power of RF generators needed for sustaining
discharge and ignition in substantially DC/RF
insulated chambers. This is a concern for both
capacitive and inductive plasma sources. ICP etchers
use capacitive currents for discharge ignition as well.
The tradeoff between the discharge stability and
ignition is efficiently solved in capacitively balanced
transmission-line inductive plasma sources like
Gamma-Dipole Resonator [3].
Process chambers, especially pumping baffles,
become more critical for discharge uniformity
because of large wafer size: center to edge distance
along the wafer is becoming much longer than
edge-to-baffle distance. New materials in the chambers
bring about some new electrical effects as well.
Overall, there are a lot of particular discharge and
material improvements along the 200-300 transition to
improve process quality and drive the semiconductor
industry to higher efficiency.
Conclusion
The main development trend of 300-mm plasma
equipment, particularly etchers, is further increasing
competition between capacitive and inductive plasma
sources. Capacitive plasma sources increase excitation
frequency in order to attain low-pressure high-density
plasma conditions, while inductive sources are going to
essentially shrink the discharge gap and cover the low
gas residence time range previously occupied
exclusively by the capacitive counterpart. Both systems
seem to be converging at the very limit for advanced
oxide etchers.
Wide-gap inductive sources are successfully
replacing capacitive systems in polysilicon and metal
etch. Microwave systems are yet in minority and will
hardly occupy a noticeable place in the 300-mm market
in the near future.
There is yet plenty of work to do for mitigating
chamber and process non -uniformities along the way to
the “well-designed tools and well-designed processes ”.
References:
[1] D. Vogler, Solid State Technology, Oct. 2002, 27.
[2] J.W. Coburn, AVS 49th Symposium, Nov. 2002,
Abstracts, PS-MoM1.
[3] G.K. Vinogradov, Plasma Sources Science and
Technology, 9, 400 (2000).