This work, done at UT Dallas, was focused on exploring the impacts of an Atomic Layer Anneal (ALA) in conjunction with Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) of Silicon Nitride (Si3N4) utilizing Rasirc’s proprietary ultra pure anhydrous Hydrazine (N2H4). Silicon Nitride films are commonly used in semiconductor device fabrication as etch stops and barrier layers. As such the film qualities of interest are etch resistance and film conformality. There is also a continued interest in driving deposition temperatures lower for device shrink and integration reasons. This work illustrated that the use of an ALA step during the deposition could substantially improve the film quality (lower the etch rate) while maintaining or improving the conformality of the film. It is foundational work that will be built on to further explore low temperature high quality Silicon Nitride films for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
