Gate Electrode Etching Using a Transformer Coupled Plasma

Gate electrode etching using a transformer coupled plasma (TCP) was studied for future device fabrication. The influence of chamber hardware configuration on plasma characteristics and etching performance has been studied for polysilicon and polycide etching. It has been found that etching and plasma uniformities greatly depend upon dielectric plate shape and position of the inductive coil on the dielectric plate, and that distance between the inductive coil and the dielectric plate has a big impact on the etching performance. This impact on the etching performance is caused by changing the capacitively coupled component in the inductively coupled plasma.