Etching of porous and solid SiO2 in Ar∕c-C4F8, O2∕c-C4F8 and Ar∕O2∕c-C4F8 plasmas

Abstract

C - C 4 F 8 -based plasmas are used for selective etching of high aspect ratio (HAR) trenches in SiO2 and other dielectrics for microelectronics fabrication. Additives such as Ar and O2 are often used to optimize the process. Understanding the fundamentals of these processes is critical to extending technologies developed for solid SiO2 to porous SiO2, as used in low-dielectric constant insulators. To investigate these issues, reaction mechanisms developed for etching of solid and porous SiO2 in fluorocarbon plasmas and for etching of organic polymers in O2 plasmas have been incorporated into a feature profile model capable of addressing two-phase porous materials. The reaction mechanism was validated by comparison to experiments for blanket etching of solid and porous SiO2 in Ar∕c-C4F8 and O2∕c-C4F8 plasmas using inductively coupled plasma reactors. We found that the blanket etch rates of both solid and porous SiO2 had maxima as a function of Ar and O2 addition to c-C4F8 at mole fractions corresponding to an optimum thickness of the overlying polymer layer. Larger Ar and O2 additions were required to optimize the etch rate for porous SiO2. Whereas etch stops occurred during etching of HAR features in solid and porous SiO2 using pure c-C4F8 plasmas, Ar and O2 addition facilitated etching by reducing the polymer thickness, though with some loss of critical dimensions. Mixtures of Ar∕O2∕c-C4F8 can be used to manage this tradeoff.