Plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition of dielectric thin films for ULSI semiconductor circuits

Plasma-assisted deposition of thin films is widely used in microelectronic circuit manufacturing. Materials deposited include conductors such as tungsten, copper, aluminum, transition-metal silicides, and refractory metals, semiconductors such as gallium arsenide, epitaxial and polycrystalline silicon, and dielectrics such as silicon oxide, silicon nitride, and silicon oxynitride. This paper reviews plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD) applications and techniques for dielectric thin films. In particular, we focus on the integration, process, and reliability requirements for dielectric films used for isolation, passivation, barrier, and antireflective-coating applications in ultralarge-scale integrated (ULSI) semiconductor circuits. In addition, manufacturing issues and considerations for further work are discussed.