A method is provided for sealing a seam in a self-aligned contact (SAC) layer that is disposed on a gate of a semiconductor structure. The method includes depositing a filler in the seam to seal the seam.

A method of patterning a substrate. The method may include providing a cavity in a layer, disposed on the substrate, the cavity having a first length along a first direction and a first width along a second direction, perpendicular to the first direction, and wherein the layer has a first height along a third direction, perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction. The method may include depositing a sacrificial layer over the cavity in a first deposition procedure; and directing angled ions to the cavity in a first exposure, wherein the cavity is etched, and wherein after the first exposure, the cavity has a second length along the first direction, greater than the first length, and wherein the cavity has a second width along the second direction, no greater than the first width.

The invention provides a method for detecting one or more analytes, the method comprising: providing a substrate comprising a semiconductor with a porous surface, wherein the porous surface is coated with a fluorocarbon polymeric coating; contacting the porous surface with a fluid or object so that the one or more analytes are retained on the substrate when present in the fluid or on the object; and analysing the substrate by mass spectrometry to detect the one or more analytes if present on the substrate.

A plasma processing apparatus which forms a first film on a pattern formed on a substrate having dense and coarse areas, and then performs sputtering or etching on the first film.

A film deposition method includes maintaining an inside of a chamber to have a predetermined pressure, cooling a stage, on which the object to be processed mounts, to have an ultralow temperature of −20° C., and mounting the object to be processed on the stage, supplying a gas including a low vapor pressure material gas of a low vapor pressure material into the inside of the chamber, and generating plasma from the supplied gas including the gas of the low vapor pressure material, and causing a precursor generated from the low vapor pressure material by the plasma to be deposited on a recess part of the object to be processed.

The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for providing a dielectric layer on a semiconductor substrate capable of supporting very high density interconnects (i.e., ≥100 IO/mm). The dielectric layer includes a maleimide polymer in which a thiol-terminated functional group crosslinks with an epoxy resin. The resultant dielectric material provides a dielectric constant of less than 3 and a dissipation factor of less than 0.001. Additionally, the thiol functional group forms coordination complexes with noble metals present in the conductive structures, thus by controlling the stoichiometry of epoxy to polyimide, the thiol-polyimide may beneficially provide an adhesion enhancer between the dielectric and noble metal conductive structures.

An integrated circuit (IC) includes a semiconductor substrate and an interconnect region. The semiconductor substrate has a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface. The semiconductor substrate has a first region with a passive component. The semiconductor substrate has a second region outside the first region. The resistance of the second region is smaller than the resistance of the first region. The interconnection region is on the second surface of the semiconductor substrate.

An apparatus and method for etching a material layer with a cyclic etching and deposition process. The method for etching a material layer on a substrate includes: (a) etching at least a portion of a material layer (302) on a substrate (101) in an etch chamber (100) to form an open feature (360) having a bottom surface (312) and sidewalls in the material layer (302); (b) forming a protection layer (314) on the sidewalls and the bottom surface (312) of the open feature (360) from a protection layer (314) gas mixture comprising at least one carbon-fluorine containing gas; (c) selectively removing the protection layer (314) formed on the bottom surface (312) of the open feature (360) from a bottom surface (312) open gas mixture comprising the carbon-fluorine containing gas; and (d) continuingly etching the material layer (302) from the bottom surface (312) of the open feature (360) until a desired depth of the open feature (360) is reached.

A method for processing a substrate includes performing a cyclic plasma process including a plurality of cycles, each cycle of the plurality of cycles including purging a plasma processing chamber including the substrate with a first deposition gas including carbon. The substrate includes a first layer including silicon and a second layer including a metal oxide. The method further includes exposing the substrate to a first plasma generated from the first deposition gas to selectively deposit a first polymeric film over the first layer relative to the second layer; purging the plasma processing chamber with an etch gas including fluorine; and exposing the substrate to a second plasma generated from the etch gas to etch the second layer.

Materials and methods for modifying semiconducting substrate surfaces in order to dramatically change surface energy are provided. Preferred materials include perfluorocarbon molecules or polymers with various functional groups. The functional groups (carboxylic acids, hydroxyls, epoxies, aldehydes, and/or thiols) attach materials to the substrate surface by physical adsorption or chemical bonding, while the perfluorocarbon components contribute to low surface energy. Utilization of the disclosed materials and methods allows rapid transformation of surface properties from hydrophilic to hydrophobic (water contact angle 120° and PGMEA contact angle) 70°. Selective liquiphobic modifications of copper over Si/SiOx, TiOx over Si/SiOx, and SiN over SiOx are also demonstrated.