Oxidizing filler material lines to increase width of hard mask lines

• Main Authors: SHIVAJI PEDDETI, CHANG MAENG
• Format: Patent
• Language: Chinese; English
• Published: 01.12.2017
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

The invention relates to oxidizing filler material lines to increase width of hard mask lines. A starting semiconductor structure includes a layer of filler material, a hard mask layer over the layer of filler material, and filler material lines over the hard mask layer. The starting semiconductor structure is placed in an etching chamber, and oxygen gas and high plasma power are inserted into the etching chamber and oxidizing, resulting in one or more of the filler material lines being oxidized, the filler material line(s) increasing in width from oxidizing, and etching the hard mask layer with a chemistry that is non-selective to the oxidized filler material lines and hard mask layer, and which has a stronger lateral etch selectivity to the oxidized filler material lines than the hard mask layer. 本发明涉及增加硬掩模线宽度的氧化填充材料线，其中起始半导体结构包括填充材料层，该填充材料层上方的硬掩膜层，以及该硬掩膜层上方的填充材料线。该起始半导体结构置于蚀刻室内，注入高等离子功率的氧气至该蚀刻室内并执行氧化，以使该填充材料线中的个或多个被氧化，该填充材料线的宽度通过氧化而增加，以及使用对该氧化的填充材料线与硬掩膜层不具有选择性的化学方式蚀刻该硬掩膜层，其中，该化学方式对于该氧化的填充材料线具有比该硬掩膜层更强的侧向蚀刻