US 12,325,910 B2
Deposition of conformal and gap-fill amorphous silicon thin-films
Yihong Chen, San Jose, CA (US); Rui Cheng, Santa Clara, CA (US); Pramit Manna, Sunnyvale, CA (US); Kelvin Chan, San Ramon, CA (US); Karthik Janakiraman, San Jose, CA (US); Abhijit Basu Mallick, Palo Alto, CA (US); and Srinivas Gandikota, Santa Clara, CA (US)
Assigned to Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed by Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed on Oct. 19, 2016, as Appl. No. 15/297,257.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/244,834, filed on Oct. 22, 2015.
Prior Publication US 2017/0114453 A1, Apr. 27, 2017
Int. Cl. H01L 21/02 (2006.01); C23C 16/04 (2006.01); C23C 16/24 (2006.01); C23C 16/455 (2006.01); C23C 16/458 (2006.01)
CPC C23C 16/24 (2013.01) [C23C 16/04 (2013.01); C23C 16/045 (2013.01); C23C 16/455 (2013.01); C23C 16/45523 (2013.01); C23C 16/4584 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of depositing an amorphous silicon film on a substrate, the method comprising:
in a processing chamber, repeatedly and sequentially exposing the substrate to precursor exposure regions and degas regions separated by a gas curtain using a non-plasma process to form a continuous amorphous silicon film having predetermined total thickness on a feature on a substrate surface by exposing the substrate surface to a silicon precusor at a target pressure greater than or equal to about 20 Torr in a first precursor exposure region of the processing chamber, the amorphous silicon film having outgassable species comprising hydrogen and a thickness in a range of about 5Å to about 20Å;
moving the substrate to a first degas region of the processing chamber and exposing the amorphous silicon film to an inert degas environment to form a degassed amorphous silicon film; and
sequentially moving the substrate to further precursor exposure regions and degas regions to form a degassed amorphous silicon film having a thickness in a range of about 100 Å to about 1 μm, wherein the target pressure is pre-stabilized and not ramped before the substrate is moved to the precursor exposure regions.