A material deposition system comprises a dopant source containing at least one dopant precursor material, an inert gas source containing at least one noble gas, and a physical vapor deposition apparatus in selective fluid communication with the dopant source and the inert gas source. The physical vapor deposition apparatus comprises a housing structure, a target electrode, and a substrate holder. The housing structure is configured and positioned to receive at least one feed fluid stream comprising the at least one dopant precursor material and the at least one noble gas. The target electrode is within the housing structure and is in electrical communication with a signal generator. The substrate holder is within the housing structure and is spaced apart from the target electrode. A method of forming a microelectronic device, a microelectronic device, a memory device, and an electronic system are also described.

Methods for DRAM device with a buried word line are described. The method includes forming a metal cap layer and a molybdenum conductor layer in a feature on a substrate. The method includes depositing the metal cap layer on the substrate by physical vapor deposition (PVD) and depositing the molybdenum conductor layer by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on the metal cap layer.

A method of fabricating a semiconductor device includes forming a dielectric layer on a lower structure. The method includes forming an opening to penetrate through the dielectric layer. The method includes alternately repeating a first operation, in which a first sputtering deposition process is performed to form a first metal pattern in the opening, and a second operation, in which a second sputtering deposition process is performed to form a second metal pattern in the opening, two or more times to form a first metal layer. The method includes forming a second metal layer on the first metal layer in an electroplating manner, and planarizing the first and second metal layers. Moreover, first and second process times, during which the first sputtering deposition process and the second sputtering deposition process, respectively, are performed, are each about five seconds or less.

A film formation device includes a target holder configured to hold a target for emitting sputtering particles in a processing space inside a processing chamber, a sputtering particle emitting part configured to emit the sputtering particles from the target, a sputtering particle shielding plate having a passage hole through which the emitted sputtering particles pass, a shielding member provided to shield the passage hole, a movement mechanism configured to move the shielding member in the horizontal direction, and a controller. The controller controls the shielding member, which has the placement portion on which a substrate is placed, to be moved in one direction of the horizontal direction, and controls the sputtering particles to be emitted from the target. The sputtering particles passed through the passage hole are deposited on the substrate.

A method and apparatus are for controlling stress variation in a material layer formed via pulsed DC physical vapour deposition. The method includes the steps of providing a chamber having a target from which the material layer is formed and a substrate upon which the material layer is formable, and subsequently introducing a gas within the chamber. The method further includes generating a plasma within the chamber and applying a first magnetic field proximate the target to substantially localise the plasma adjacent the target. An RF bias is applied to the substrate to attract gas ions from the plasma toward the substrate and a second magnetic field is applied proximate the substrate to steer gas ions from the plasma to selective regions upon the material layer formed on the substrate.

A semiconductor structure includes a conductive line, a pad layer, and a barrier layer. The conductive line is embedded in a multi-level interconnect structure. The pad layer is over the conductive line. The barrier layer is between the conductive line and the pad layer. The pad layer is electrically connected to the conductive line through the barrier layer, and the barrier layer includes a first poly-crystalline layer and a second poly-crystalline layer. A boundary is between the first poly-crystalline layer and the second poly-crystalline layer.

This application discloses a coating method for making a chip. The method includes: fixing a substrate on a base. The substrate includes a hole. The method includes controlling an included angle between a plane on which the substrate is located and a deposition direction of a coating material to be greater than 0 degrees and less than 90 degrees. The method includes controlling the substrate to rotate with respect to an axis perpendicular to the plane on which the substrate is located. The method includes during the rotation of the substrate, controlling the coating material to enter the hole along the deposition direction such that the coating material is deposited on a sidewall of the hole.

A method for fabricating semiconductor device includes the steps of first forming a gate structure on a substrate, forming a source/drain region adjacent to two sides of the gate structure, forming an epitaxial layer on the source/drain region, forming an interlayer dielectric (ILD) layer on the gate structure, forming a contact hole in the ILD layer to expose the epitaxial layer, forming a low stress metal layer in the contact hole, forming a barrier layer on the low stress metal layer, and forming an anneal process to form a first silicide layer and a second silicide layer.

An electronic device, an electronic module comprising the electronic device and methods for fabricating the same are disclosed. In one example, the electronic device includes a semiconductor substrate and a metal stack disposed on the semiconductor substrate, wherein the metal stack comprises a first layer, wherein the first layer comprises NiSi.

Energy bands of a thin film containing molecular clusters are tuned by controlling the size and the charge of the clusters during thin film deposition. Using atomic layer deposition, an ionic cluster film is formed in the gate region of a nanometer-scale transistor to adjust the threshold voltage, and a neutral cluster film is formed in the source and drain regions to adjust contact resistance. A work function semiconductor material such as a silver bromide or a lanthanum oxide is deposited so as to include clusters of different sizes such as dimers, trimers, and tetramers, formed from isolated monomers. A type of Atomic Layer Deposition system is used to deposit on semiconductor wafers molecular clusters to form thin film junctions having selected energy gaps. A beam of ions contains different ionic clusters which are then selected for deposition by passing the beam through a filter in which different apertures select clusters based on size and orientation.