Semiconductor processing with plasma implantation

Abstract

An updated survey of plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) applications in semiconductor processing is presented. PIII is a technique in which a negative bias extracts ions directly from a plasma to be implanted into a substrate immersed in the plasma. This technique offers the advantage of high dose-rate implantation at low energies and large area processing capability over conventional implanters with more compex design. PIII has been applied to semiconductor processing in the formation of shallow junctions, poly doping, impurity gettering, Pd seeding for Cu interconnects and conformal doping of trenches. While PIII has inherent advantages, such as built-in wafer charge neutralization, issues such as contamination, wafer heating, secondary electron generation, and substrate interactions with the plasma remain concerns.