A plasma nitriding apparatus includes: a surface treatment unit which includes a treatment tank to house part of a treatment object inclusive of a surface treatment region, and performs a nitriding treatment on the surface treatment region inside of the treatment tank by using plasma of a treatment gas; and an outer container which receives supply of the treatment gas, and houses the treatment object and the treatment tank so that a region of the treatment object other than the part is exposed from the treatment tank.

The present invention increases uniformity of plasma processing in a surface to be processed of an object to be processed or increases uniformity of plasma processing between objects to be processed. There is provided a plasma processing apparatus including: a processing container; a gas supply system; an exhaust system; a plasma generating unit; a gas flow path installed between an outer wall of the processing container and the plasma generating unit, the gas flow path guiding a temperature controlling gas to flow along the outer wall of the processing container; a plurality of gas introduction holes disposed along a circumferential direction of the processing container and configured to introduce the temperature controlling gas into the gas flow path; and a gas exhaustion hole configured to exhaust the temperature controlling gas passed through the gas flow path.

The present invention provides a plasma processing technology of applying isotropic dry etching to SiGe that does not allow etching amounts of respective SiGe layers to depend on a depth of a laminated structure in a laminated structure in which Si layers and the SiGe layers are stacked alternately and repeatedly. The present invention provides a plasma processing technology of repeating plasma oxidation using an oxygen (O) element containing gas and plasma etching using a fluorine (F) element and carbon (C) element containing gas in a plasma processing method of isotropically etching respective SiGe layers selectively to respective Si layers in a structure in which the Si layers and the SiGe layers are stacked alternately and repeatedly.

Provided are a nitriding apparatus and a method of nitriding, which are capable of suppressing generation of a compound layer by accurately measuring temperature of an object to be treated by nitriding. A nitriding apparatus includes a chamber, a gas supplying unit, a support, a plasma source, a heater, a thermocouple wire including a temperature measuring section, an accommodating member, a power supply for an object to be treated, and a treatment condition control unit. The accommodating member internally accommodates the thermocouple wire to cover the temperature measuring section, while being insulated from the thermocouple wire. The power supply for an object to be treated applies a predetermined voltage to an object to be treated and the housing member so that the object to be treated and the accommodating member are set to an identical potential on the negative side.

A film forming apparatus includes: a rotary table provided in a chamber; a processing unit configured to perform plasma processing on a workpiece transferred by the rotary table; an inner wall configured to define a processing space and having an opening facing the rotary table; an outer wall configured to cover a periphery of the inner wall with a gap, and configured to form an exhaust space having an opening facing the rotary table; and an exhaust port connected to an exhaust device, wherein the processing unit is a film forming part configured to form a film by sputtering, and wherein both ends of the outer wall are in contact with a side surface of the chamber, and a portion of an outer periphery of the inner wall and the side surface of the chamber are partitioned, so that a reaction gas does not circulate in the exhaust space.

The present disclosure appropriately shortens a processing step for processing a substrate in which a silicon layer and a silicon germanium layer are alternatively laminated. The present disclosure provides a substrate processing method of processing the substrate in which the silicon layer and the silicon germanium layer are alternatively laminated, which includes forming an oxide film by selectively modifying a surface layer of an exposed surface of the silicon germanium layer by using a processing gas including fluorine and oxygen and converted into plasma.

The present invention provides a plasma processing technology of applying isotropic dry etching to SiGe that does not allow etching amounts of respective SiGe layers to depend on a depth of a laminated structure in a laminated structure in which Si layers and the SiGe layers are stacked alternately and repeatedly. The present invention provides a plasma processing technology of repeating plasma oxidation using an oxygen (O) element containing gas and plasma etching using a fluorine (F) element and carbon (C) element containing gas in a plasma processing method of isotropically etching respective SiGe layers selectively to respective Si layers in a structure in which the Si layers and the SiGe layers are stacked alternately and repeatedly.

A film formation method of forming, in a substrate having a first surface and a second surface, a film containing at least silicon and oxygen on the second surface in a selective manner with respect to the first surface, the film formation method includes: causing the first surface to be a nitrided surface made of nitride or a carbonized surface made of carbide by supplying a nitrogen-containing gas or a carbon-containing gas to the substrate; supplying a metal-containing catalyst to the substrate; and supplying a silicon precursor including silanol to the substrate.

An ignition controlling method is performed in a film forming apparatus including: a processing container that accommodates a substrate; a plasma box formed on the processing container; a pair of electrodes arranged to sandwich the plasma box therebetween; and an RF power supply connected to the pair of electrodes via a matching box including a variable capacitor. The ignition controlling method includes: storing first information indicating a voltage between the electrodes for each of a plurality of adjustment positions of the variable capacitor, and second information indicating a voltage between the electrodes and the substrate; determining an initial position of the variable capacitor based on the first and second information; and selecting an area where a plasma ignition is to be performed from the plasma box and the processing container, by setting the adjustment positions of the variable capacitor to the initial position.

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an apparatus and method utilized in the manufacture of semiconductor devices. In one embodiment, a method of forming a layer, including positioning a substrate in a processing chamber; introducing at least one precursor gas into the processing chamber; generating a dual RF plasma with the at least one precursor gas by pulsing a first RF power source and a second RF power source, the first RF power source and the second RF power source having different frequencies; depositing a layer on the substrate with the dual RF plasma; introducing at least one additional precursor gas into the processing chamber; generating an etching plasma by applying the first RF power source to the at least one additional precursor gas; and etching the layer with the etching plasma.