William John Patrick

Plasma‐Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition of Silicon Dioxide Films Using Tetraethoxysilane and Oxygen: Characterization and Properties of Films

SiO 2 films were deposited in a commercial single wafer parallel plate plasma deposition reactor using tetraethoxysilane as the silicon source. Deposition conditions were varied to produce films with widely differing properties. Electrical, optical, mechanical, and wet-etch-rate characterization were then used to investigate the as-deposited film quality. Moisture uptake was also measured and related to the initial properties. The films were studied in an ongoing investigation of silicon dioxide interlevel dielectric films used in multilevel ultra large scale integrated chip wiring

The Effective Dielectric Constant of Silicon Dioxides Deposited in the Spaces Between Adjacent Conductors

The effective dielectric constants, , of silicon dioxides deposited onto a metallic comb structure were compared with the values, e, (obtained using metal oxide semiconductors capacitors) for the same oxides deposited (under identical conditions) on smooth horizontal surfaces. The value of was calculated from the measured capacitance of the comb structure using the procedure described in the Appendix. For an oxide, deposited at 390°C by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition (CVD), plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD), using tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and , compared with . The differences were much smaller for PECVD oxides; no significant differences were observed for PECVD ECR oxides and for sputtered oxides.