SBIR Phase I: Atmospheric Pressure Molecular Layer CVD

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project proposes to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel approach to molecular-layer film deposition. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) for barrier layers and thin dielectrics provides unexcelled control of film thickness and conformality, but has been plagued by low deposition rates, film contamination, and high cost. Many of these deficiencies are due to the limited reactant concentrations used in low-pressure operation, combined with the complex pump / purge cycles conventionally employed. Atmospheric-pressure operation, combined with spatial reactant separation, can enable a continuous-processing architecture that promises much higher throughput and lower cost, and high reactant concentrations ensure saturatedmonolayer growth and low contaminant concentrations without unacceptably slow deposition cycles. In this work the company proposes to demonstrate deposition of uniform films of TiN to show the benefits of the atmospheric pressure approach, using a prototype reactor previously constructed. Successful demonstration of the benefits of AP-MLCVD will provide the company with sufficient information to construct a viable alpha-stage commercial tool, in which deposition testing on 200-mm or 300-mm wafers relevant to large-scale integrated circuit fabrication can be performed. Commercially, such full-scale demonstrations are indispensable for commercialization of new processes in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Atmospheric-pressure operation, combined with spatial-separation-based MLCVD process, makes it possible to construct a high-throughput deposition tool that is simultaneously low in cost, as no load locks or pump down operations are required, and simple circular wafer transport with a single load-unload station can be used. APMLCVD will enable a new generation of deposition processes for controllable fabrication of ultra-thin films of complex materials, such as high-k dielectrics and diffusion barrier layers.