Novel Particle-Reduction System in Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition Process of Interlayer Dielectrics

Abstract

The new particle-reduction system for tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (CVD), TEOS plasma-enhanced CVD was developed. It was found that the successive sparks in the plasma-enhanced CVD chamber caused the abnormal discharge (arc). Based on these findings, the new system for avoiding the transfer to the abnormal discharge by cutting the RF power was proposed. In this system, the RF power-cut was triggered by the successive sparks, which were detected by the electromagnetic sensors. When the RF power was cut at the successive sparks within 20 µs, the generation of abnormal discharge was eliminated, resulting in the drastic decrease of number of particles. Consequently, it is considered that this particle reduction system is very effective tools for stable production of TEOS plasma-enhanced CVD SiO2 dielectrics.