Oxidizing filler material lines to increase width of hard mask lines

• Main Authors: MAENG, CHANG HO, PEDDETI, SHIVAJI
• Format: Patent
• Language: Chinese; English
• Published: 01.09.2018
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; LAYERED PRODUCTS; LAYERED PRODUCTS, i.e. PRODUCTS BUILT-UP OF STRATA OF FLAT ORNON-FLAT, e.g. CELLULAR OR HONEYCOMB, FORM; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; TRANSPORTING

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.