1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention involves an etching process that utilizes an undoped silicon dioxide layer as an etch stop during a selective etch of a doped silicon dioxide layer that is situated on a semiconductor substrate. More particularly, the present invention relates to a process for selectively utilizing a fluorinated chemistry in a plasma etch system for etching a doped silicon dioxide layer situated upon an undoped silicon dioxide layer that acts as an etch stop.
2. The Relevant Technology
Modern integrated circuits are manufactured by an elaborate process in which a large number of electronic semiconductor devices are integrally formed on a semiconductor substrate. In the context of this document, the term “semiconductive substrate” is defined to mean any construction comprising semiconductive material, including but not limited to bulk semiconductive material such as a semiconductive wafer, either alone or in assemblies comprising other materials thereon, and semiconductive material layers, either alone or in assemblies comprising other materials. The term substrate refers to any supporting structure including but not limited to the semiconductive substrates described above.
Conventional semiconductor devices which are formed on a semiconductor substrate include capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes, and the like. In advance manufacturing of integrated circuits, hundreds of thousands of these semiconductor devices are formed on a single semiconductor substrate. In order to compactly form the semiconductor devices, the semiconductor devices are formed on varying levels of the semiconductor substrate. This requires forming a semiconductor substrate with a topographical design.
The semiconductor industry is attempting to increase the speed at which integrated circuits operate, to increase the density of devices on the integrated circuits, and to reduce the price of the integrated circuits. To accomplish this task, the semiconductor devices used to form the integrated circuits are continually being increased in number and decreased in dimension in a process known as miniaturization.
One component of the integrated circuit that is becoming highly miniaturized is the active region. An active region is a doped area in a semiconductor substrate that is used together with other active regions to form a diode or a transistor. The miniaturization of the active region complicates the formation of the interconnect structure in that, in order to maintain sufficient electrical communication, the interconnect structure must be formed in exact alignment with the active region. Also, the area of the interconnect structure interfacing with the active region must be maximized. Thus, less area is provided as tolerance for misalignment of the interconnect structure.
The increasing demands placed upon manufacturing requirements for the interconnect structure have not been adequately met by the existing conventional technology. For example, it is difficult at greater miniaturization levels to exactly align the contact hole with the active region when patterning and etching the contact hole. As a result, topographical structures near the bottom of the contact hole upon the active region can be penetrated and damaged during etching of the contact hole. The damage reduces the performance of the active region and alters the geometry thereof, causing a loss of function of the semiconductor device being formed and possibly a defect condition in the entire integrated circuit. To remedy these problems, the prior art uses an etch stop to prevent over etching.
In a conventional self-aligned etch process for a contact hole, a silicon nitride layer or cap is usually used on top of a gate stack as an etch stop layer during the self-aligned contact etch process. One of the problems in the prior art with forming a silicon nitride cap was the simultaneous formation of a silicon nitride layer on the back side of the semiconductor wafer. The particular problems depend on the process flow. For instance, where a low pressure chemical vapor deposition is used to deposit silicon nitride, both sides of the semiconductor wafer would receive deposits of silicon nitride. The presence of the silicon nitride on the back side of the semiconductor wafer causes stress which deforms the shape of the semiconductor wafer, and can also potentially cause deformation of the crystal structure as well as cause defects in the circuit. Additionally, silicon nitride deposition is inherently a dirty operation having particulate matter in abundance which tends to reduce yield. When a low pressure chemical vapor deposition process is utilized, the silicon nitride layering on the back side of the semiconductor wafer must be removed later in the process flow.