USING A DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS APPROACH FOR CHARACTERIZATION OF UNDOPED PLASMA-ENHANCED CHEMICAL-VAPOR DEPOSITED SIO2 FILM PROPERTIES

RS/Discover, an experimental software package, was used to construct a Plackett-Burman screening experiment to relate the film properties of a silane-based undoped plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposited (PECVD) SiO2 to the deposition parameters in a Novellus PECVD reactor. Temperature, pressure, power, and gas flows were simultaneously varied to study the effects that the deposition parameters had on the physical, chemical, and electrical film characteristics. A linear model was developed from the data collected. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra revealed that the asymmetric Si-O-Si peak position correlated to several film parameters including the destructive breakdown voltage, the wet etch rate, and the index of refraction of the deposited oxide. The highest deposition rates (> 0.6-mu-m/min) and film thickness uniformity (< 1.0% nonuniformity) were obtained when the Novellus system was operated at high silane flows with low power and pressure values. The particulate level was found to be directly related to the nitrogen carrier gas flow rate.