The present invention relates to a method of fabricating fins, and particularly to a method of fabricating fins including a flush step.
A fin-type field effect transistor (FinFET) is a type of transistor that has a fin containing a channel region and source and drain regions. A simple FinFET is formed by the intersection of a fin and a gate structure. The gate structure covers the channel region of the fin, whereas the source and drain regions of the fin extend beyond the coverage of the gate structure. FinFET processing is often accomplished using an etching process such as a dry etching process to form fins.
Dry etch processes are desirable for selectively removing material from semiconductor substrates. This desirability stems from the ability to gently remove material from miniature structures with minimal physical disturbance. Dry etching processes involve the exposure of a substrate to remote plasma by-products formed from one or more precursors. Therefore, after fins are formed by the dry etching process, some etch residues will be attached to the surface of the fins.
These etch residues will cause cracking of the fins after a gate structure is stacked on the fins.
In light of the above, the present invention provides a fabricating method to remove etch residues on fins.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a method of fabricating fins includes providing a silicon substrate divided into a first region and a second region. Then, the silicon substrate is etched to form numerous fin elements within the first region and the second region. A surface of each of the fin elements is silicon. A flush step is performed on the fin elements by flushing the surface of each of the fin elements with fluorocarbons. After the flush step, a strip step is performed on the fin elements by treating the surface of each of the fin elements with oxygen plasma. After the strip step, the fin elements within the second region are entirely removed and the fin elements within the first region are remained. Finally, each of the fin elements within the first region is divided into numerous fins.
These and other objectives of the present invention will become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
Please refer to
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The strip step is performed by treating the surface of each of the fin elements 12 with oxygen plasma. The surface damage 16 of the fin elements 12 can be fixed by the strip step. The flow rate of the oxygen is preferably between 180 and 220 sccm. The operating time of the strip step is preferably between 27 and 33 seconds. Moreover, a silicon oxide layer 18 is formed on the surfaces of the fin elements 12 as by-products during the strip step. The silicon oxide layer 18 may be native oxide.
The cleaning step can be performed repeatedly until the etch residues 14 and the surface damage 16 on the fin elements 12 are totally removed or fixed. Furthermore, if the cleaning step is only performed once, during the flush step and before the flush step, the surface of each of the fin elements 12 will not be covered by silicon oxide. If the cleaning step is performed repeatedly, the surface of each of the fin elements 12 will not be covered by silicon oxide during the flush step and before the flush step of the first time of the cleaning process is performed.
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According to another embodiment, the formation of the silicon oxide layer 20 can be performed after the fins 22 are formed, i.e. the silicon oxide layer 20 is not formed during the step shown in
Conventionally, the etch residues 14 on the fin elements 12 become weak points of the fins 22. After the gate oxide layer 28 and the gate 30 are stacked on the fins 22, as long as the etch residues 14 remain on the fins 22, the fins 22 will easily be cracked from the weak points. In the present invention, the etch residues 14 on the fin elements 12 are removed by using the flush step. Therefore, the surface of the fins 22 becomes smooth, and the roughness of the surface of the fins 22 is decreased due to the flush step. In this way, the probability of cracking can be reduced.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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8455325 | Fukuda | Jun 2013 | B2 |
8470714 | Tsai | Jun 2013 | B1 |
8674413 | Chi | Mar 2014 | B1 |
20110097889 | Yuan | Apr 2011 | A1 |
20140264725 | Chuang | Sep 2014 | A1 |
20160056045 | Huang | Feb 2016 | A1 |
20170170174 | Chang | Jun 2017 | A1 |
20180040713 | Chang | Feb 2018 | A1 |
20180082903 | Voronin | Mar 2018 | A1 |
Entry |
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Po Cheng Huang et al., “Extra treatment to solve Fin damage issue”, Invention Disclosure, Dec. 10, 2014, p. 1-22. |
Tseng, Title of Invention: Semiconductor Device and Method for Fabricating the Same, U.S. Appl. No. 14/981,929, filed Dec. 29, 2015. |