Method for Manufacturing Shallow Trench Isolations

Abstract

The disclosure provides a method for manufacturing shallow trench isolations, providing a substrate comprising a storage cell area and a peripheral area of a storage device; etching the upper part of the substrate of the storage cell area using a first etching process to form a first shallow trench, and filling the first shallow trench with silicon oxide using a first deposition process; and etching the upper part of the substrate of the peripheral area using a second etching process to form a second shallow trench, and filling the second shallow trench with silicon oxide using a second deposition process; wherein the depth and characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench are smaller than the depth and characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench. The disclosure can avoid the silicon dislocation defect of the peripheral area and ensure the device shape and characteristic dimension of the storage cell area.

Claims

1. A method for manufacturing shallow trench isolations, comprising: providing a substrate, the substrate comprising a storage cell area and a peripheral area of a storage device; etching the upper part of the substrate of the storage cell area using a first etching process to form a first shallow trench, and filling the first shallow trench with first silicon oxide using a first deposition process to form a first shallow trench isolation; and etching the upper part of the substrate of the peripheral area using a second etching process different from the first etching process to form a second shallow trench, and filling the second shallow trench with second silicon oxide using a second deposition process different from the first deposition process to form a second shallow trench isolation, wherein the depth of the first shallow trench is smaller than the depth of the second shallow trench, and the characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench is smaller than the characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench.

2. The manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein the stress of the second silicon oxide is smaller than the stress of the first silicon oxide.

3. The manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein the first deposition process forms the first silicon oxide by means of reaction of perhydro-polysilazane and vapor and a high-temperature annealing step; and the second deposition process forms the second silicon oxide by means of direction reaction of silane and oxygen.

4. The manufacturing method according to claim 3, wherein the working temperature of the high-temperature annealing step of the first deposition process is 500° C. to 800° C.; and the reaction temperature of the second deposition process is 300° C. to 500° C.

5. The manufacturing method according to claim 3, wherein the second deposition process is a high density plasma process.

6. The manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein a gate dielectric layer and a floating gate layer are further sequentially formed on the upper surface of the substrate in the height direction of the substrate, and the step of forming the first shallow trench further comprises: etching the gate dielectric layer and the floating gate layer together to form a floating gate structure of each storage cell.

7. The manufacturing method according to claim 6, wherein the first etching process has the effect of lateral passivation protection on side surfaces of the floating gate structure and side spaces of the first shallow trench; and the second etching process does not have the effect of lateral passivation protection on side spaces of the second shallow trench.

8. The manufacturing method according to claim 7, wherein the first etching process controls the characteristic dimensions of the floating gate structure and the first shallow trench to be 20-30 nm.

9. The manufacturing method according to claim 8, wherein the characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench of a peripheral low voltage device formed by the second etching process is more than ten times the characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench; and/or, the characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench of a peripheral high voltage device formed by the second etching process is more than forty times the characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench.

10. The manufacturing method according to claim 8, wherein before the first etching process is used for etching, the manufacturing method further comprises: a step of patterning a mask layer using a self-aligning dual imaging process, wherein in the first etching process, the upper part of the substrate of the gate dielectric layer, the floating gate layer and the storage cell area is etched using the mask layer formed by the self-aligning dual imaging process.

11. The manufacturing method according to claim 6, wherein the first deposition process further comprises: forming first silicon oxide between the floating gate structures of the storage cells, wherein the first silicon oxide formed further covers the floating gate structures; and the second etching process further comprises: etching the upper part of the substrate in the peripheral area using the first silicon oxide as a hard mask layer of the storage cell area.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0042] The above features and advantages of the present invention can be better understood after reading detailed descriptions of the embodiments of the present disclosure in conjunction with the following drawings. In the drawings, each component is not necessarily drawn to scale, and components having similar related characteristics or features may have the same or similar reference numerals.

[0043] FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of various films and photolithographic side space patterns of a semiconductor structure that requires processing in the prior art.

[0044] FIG. 2 shows a schematic structural diagram of a device after shallow trench isolations are formed in the prior art.

[0045] FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of an embodiment of a manufacturing method provided by the present invention.

[0046] FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of various films and photolithographic side space patterns of a storage cell area of a semiconductor structure that requires processing by the manufacturing method according to the present invention.

[0047] FIG. 5 shows a schematic diagram of a photoresist pattern of a peripheral area formed by the manufacturing method according to the present invention.

[0048] FIG. 6 shows a schematic structural diagram after the photolithographic side space patterns and the photoresist image in FIGS. 4 and 5 are transferred to a hard mask layer.

[0049] FIG. 7 shows a schematic structural diagram after a storage cell area is etched using the patterned hard mask layer in FIG. 6 to form a floating gate structure and a first shallow trench of a storage cell.

[0050] FIG. 8 shows a schematic structural diagram after first silicon oxide covering the floating gate structure and a photoresist pattern of the storage cell area are formed.

[0051] FIG. 9 shows a schematic structural diagram after the photoresist pattern of the storage cell area in FIG. 8 is transferred to the first silicon oxide layer.

[0052] FIG. 10 shows a schematic structural diagram after a peripheral area is etched using the first silicon oxide layer in FIG. 9 as a hard mask layer to form a second shallow trench.

[0053] FIG. 11 shows a schematic structural diagram after the second shallow trench is filled with second silicon oxide.

[0054] FIG. 12 shows a schematic structural diagram after planarization for the entire wafer.

REFERENCE NUMERALS

[0055] 110 Substrate

[0056] 121 Gate dielectric layer of low voltage device

[0057] 122 Gate dielectric layer of high voltage device

[0058] 130 Polysilicon

[0059] 140 Silicon nitride

[0060] 150 Oxide buffer layer

[0061] 160 Amorphous silicon A-Si

[0062] 171 Side space pattern

[0063] 172 BARC/ODL

[0064] 181 Storage cell floating gate structure

[0065] 182 Peripheral low voltage device floating gate structure

[0066] 183 Peripheral high voltage device floating gate structure

[0067] 191 Storage cell area STI

[0068] 192 Peripheral area STI

[0069] 200 Substrate

[0070] 310 Gate dielectric layer

[0071] 320 Floating gate layer

[0072] 330 Silicon nitride

[0073] 340 Silicon oxide hard mask

[0074] 350 Floating gate structure

[0075] 400 Polysilicon hard mask

[0076] 410 Side space pattern

[0077] 510 Peripheral area photoresist

[0078] 520 Storage area photoresist

[0079] 610 First shallow trench

[0080] 620 First silicon oxide

[0081] 710 Second shallow trench

[0082] 720 Second silicon oxide

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

[0083] The following description is provided so that those skilled in the art can implement and use the present invention and combine it into a specific application background. Various modifications, and various uses in different applications will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein can be applied to a wide range of embodiments. Thus, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments given herein, but should be granted in the broadest scope of the principles and novel features disclosed herein.

[0084] Many specific details are set forth in the following detailed description to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it would be apparent to those skilled in the art that the practice of the present invention is not necessarily limited to these specific details. In other words, the well-known structures and devices are shown in the form of block diagrams without details to avoid obscuring the present invention.

[0085] Readers should pay attention to all documents and literature that are simultaneously submitted with this description and are open to the public to consult this description, and all such documents and literature are incorporated herein by reference. All features disclosed in this description (including any of the appended claims, abstract, and drawings) can be substituted by alternative features for achieving the same, equivalent or similar purposes, unless otherwise directly stated. Therefore, each feature disclosed is only an example of a group of equivalent or similar features, unless otherwise specified.

[0086] It should be noted that, in the case of use, the signs left, right, front, rear, top, bottom, positive, reverse, clockwise and counterclockwise are only used for convenient purposes, but do not imply any specific direction. In fact, they are used to reflect the relative position and/or direction between individual parts of an object.

[0087] The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments. It should be noted that all aspects described below with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments are merely exemplary, and should not be construed as any limitation to the protection scope of the present invention.

[0088] As described above, in the present application, the storage cell area, the peripheral high voltage device area and the Peripheral low voltage device area have differences in target parameters of multiple control objects, as shown in the following table:

TABLE-US-00001 Peripheral low Peripheral high Storage cell voltage device voltage device area Control object area (Array) area (LV) (HV) Gate dielectric layer 60 A+ 60 A+ 400 A+ Characteristic 20 nm+ >10:1 (LV:Array) >40:1 (HV:Array) dimension Control on shape Strict control Loose control and characteristic dimension

[0089] In order to solve the problem that the trench depth/CD/HM remain loading is difficult to control due to the large difference in characteristic dimensions of devices in the storage cell area and the peripheral area, and the problem of dislocation defect of the shallow trench isolation in the peripheral area due to the stress effect, the present invention provides a method for manufacturing shallow trench isolations. The manufacturing method provided in one aspect of the present invention is interpreted in conjunction with FIG. 3. As shown in FIG. 3, the manufacturing method provided in one aspect of the present invention specifically includes: step S100: providing a substrate; step S200: etching the upper part of the substrate of a storage cell area using a first etching process; S300: filling a first shallow trench with silicon oxide using a first deposition process; step S400: etching the upper part of the substrate of a peripheral area using a second etching process; and step S500: filling a second shallow trench with silicon oxide using a second deposition process.

[0090] The first etching process is different from the second etching process, the first deposition process is different from the second deposition process, the depth of the first shallow trench is smaller than the depth of the second shallow trench, and the characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench is smaller than the characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench.

[0091] The manufacturing method of the present invention will be further interpreted in conjunction with FIGS. 4-12. FIGS. 4-12 show schematic structural diagrams of a semiconductor device in various steps of the manufacturing methods provided by the present invention.

[0092] First, please refer to FIG. 4, FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of photolithographic side space patterns of a storage cell area, and various films of a semiconductor structure that requires processing by the manufacturing method according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, in step S100 of providing a substrate, the substrate 200, and a gate dielectric layer 310, a floating gate layer 320, silicon nitride 330, a silicon oxide hard mask 340, a polysilicon hard mask 400 and a side space pattern 410 sequentially formed from bottom to top above the substrate in the height direction of the substrate are provided. Understandably, the side space pattern 410 is formed based on a self-aligning dual imaging process.

[0093] Then, as shown in FIG. 5, a photoresist pattern of the peripheral area, that is, a photoresist 510 of the peripheral area, is separately formed. Understandably, step S100 further includes defining a storage cell area and a peripheral area of a storage device. Here, the photoresist 510 of the peripheral area can protect the entire peripheral area defined. Thus, when the storage cell area is etched using the side space pattern 410, the peripheral area can be prevented from being etched.

[0094] Since a floating gate structure and a shallow trench isolation etching pattern are defined using the self-aligning dual imaging process in the manufacturing method provided by the present invention, as shown in FIG. 6, the pattern of the side space pattern 410 is required to be transferred to the silicon oxide hard mask 340 and the polysilicon hard mask 400. Step S200 is performed by means of the patterned silicon oxide hard mask 340 and the polysilicon hard mask 400, to etch the substrate floating gate layer 320, the gate dielectric layer 310, and the upper part of the substrate of the storage cell area using the first etching process, as shown in FIG. 7.

[0095] Referring to FIG. 7, floating gate structures 350 and first shallow trenches 610 of the storage cell area are formed. The floating gate structure 350 includes the floating gate layer 320 and the gate dielectric layer, and the silicon nitride 330 and the silicon oxide hard mask 340 remain after etching above the floating gate structure 350 as protective layers for the floating gate structure 350.

[0096] It can be known from FIG. 7 that in the manufacturing method provided by the present invention, the characteristic dimension of the floating gate structure 350 formed is very small, the characteristic dimension between the floating gate structures (that is, the first shallow trench 610) is also very small, and according to the process requirements, the characteristic dimensions of the floating gate structures 350 and the first shallow trenches 610 are between 20 and 30 nm, that is, the manufacturing method provided by the present invention manufactures a 2X generation storage device.

[0097] In the first etching process, the characteristic dimensions of the floating gate structures 350 and the first shallow trenches 610 need to be controlled, and because any protective layer is not provided on two sides of the floating gate structures, the shapes of the floating gate structures 350 also need to be strictly controlled during etching, especially during etching of the first shallow trenches. Therefore, in the first etching process, an etch base having the effect of lateral passivation protection on the top floating gate structures 350 is added, which can thus accurately control the shapes and characteristic dimensions of the floating gate structures and the first shallow trenches during the first etching process.

[0098] The etch base having the effect of lateral passivation protection indicates that the entire trench etching process adopts a circulating process of cleaning-passivation-etching, and passivation gas N.sub.2 is introduced in the passivation step to form a side space passivation layer on the patterned bare portion, which can achieve a protection effect in the etching step to accurately control the line width and shape.

[0099] Referring to FIG. 8, step S300 is performed: first silicon oxide 620 that fills the first shallow trenches and gaps between the floating gate structures and covers the floating gate structures is formed using the first deposition process, and a photoresist pattern of the storage cell area, that is, a photoresist 520 of the storage area, is also formed.

[0100] In step S300, the first deposition process forms the first silicon oxide by means of reaction of perhydro-polysilazane and vapor and a high-temperature annealing step. Specifically, the reaction synthesis process is, O in Perhydro-Polysilazane (PSZ) is replaced with N using vapor as an oxygen source in an environment of about 300° C., and then SiO.sub.2 is formed via an annealing process of 500° C. to 800° C. Because of the high-temperature annealing step, the SiO.sub.2 formed is dense silicon oxide. After this step, the dense silicon oxide can be filled in the first shallow trench to form a shallow trench isolation (STI).

[0101] The photoresist 520 of the storage area can protect the entire storage cell area defined, so that the floating gate structure and STI formed can be prevented from being etched during subsequent etching of the peripheral area.

[0102] Referring to FIG. 9, FIG. 9 shows a schematic structural diagram after the photoresist pattern of the storage cell area in FIG. 8 is transferred to the first silicon oxide layer. That is, in subsequent step S400, in the second etching process, the upper part of the substrate of the peripheral area is etched using the patterned first silicon oxide 620 as a hard mask layer of the storage cell area.

[0103] Subsequently, referring to FIG. 10, FIG. 10 shows a schematic structural diagram after the peripheral area is etched using the first silicon oxide layer in FIG. 9 as a hard mask layer to form second shallow trenches. That is, step S400 is performed: the second etching process is performed to form second shallow trenches 710.

[0104] Understandably, the second shallow trenches 710 actually include shallow trenches corresponding to low voltage devices and shallow trenches corresponding to high voltage devices. The characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench of a peripheral low voltage device formed by the second etching process is more than ten times the characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench, and the characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench of a peripheral high voltage device formed by the second etching process is more than forty times the characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench.

[0105] The first etching process and the second etching process are also different in the depths of the shallow trenches formed. Generally, the depth of the first shallow trench formed in the storage cell area is 2200 Å, and the depth of the second shallow trench formed in the peripheral area is 2700 Å. Thus, the etching parameters need to be separately controlled on process to achieve the target depths.

[0106] The second etching process does not have the effect of lateral passivation protection on the side space of the second shallow trench. As mentioned above, in the first etching process, the step of etching the first shallow trench is mainly based on silicon etching, and needs to protect the floating gate structure whose upper layer has been patterned, so the etch base that achieves the effect of lateral passivation protection on the top floating gate structure is added in the first etching process. This lateral passivation protection will affect the shape of the side space of the shallow trench at the same time. Since the characteristic dimension of the first shallow trench in the storage cell area is very small, the lateral passivation protection on the floating gate structure is greater than the extent to which the shape of the side space of the shallow trench is affected. However, since the characteristic dimension of the second shallow trench in the peripheral area is large, the lateral passivation protection will form a non-smooth stepped shape on the side space of the second shallow trench in the peripheral area. This needs to be overcome. Since the manufacturing method provided by the present invention separately treats the etching of the shallow trench in the storage cell area and the etching of the shallow trench of the peripheral area, the floating gate structure with small characteristic dimension at the top of the storage cell area does not need to be considered. Therefore, the lateral passivation protection can be canceled in the second etching process.

[0107] Understandably, in the first etching process, the entire trench etching process adopts a circulating process of cleaning-passivation-etching, and passivation gas N.sub.2 is introduced in the passivation step to form a side space passivation layer on the patterned bare portion, which can achieve a protection effect in the etching step.

[0108] In the second etching process, because the characteristic dimension is relatively large, the passivation step is not required to accurately control the characteristic dimension and shape, and the etching process only needs to meet depth requirements.

[0109] Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 11, step S500 is performed: the second shallow trench 710 is filled with second silicon oxide 720 using the second deposition process to form a shallow trench isolation in the peripheral area. The second deposition process is a high density plasma (HDP) process. This process adds Bias RF based on PECVD, and introduces the effect of sputter during deposition, thereby controlling the size of overhang to reduce the deposition rate of the side space of the trench and then to realize filling. The HDP oxide formed by the second deposition process is obtained by the reaction of silane and oxygen at the temperature of 300° C. to 500° C., which is a low-temperature deposition reaction. Compared to the high-temperature annealing in the first deposition process, the silicon oxide stress of the HDP oxide deposited at low temperature in the large peripheral area is attenuated. Therefore, the defect of silicon dislocation in the prior art can be avoided.

[0110] Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 12, the entire wafer on which the shallow trench isolations and the floating gate structures in the storage cell area, and the shallow trench isolation in the peripheral area are formed is flattened to remove redundant second silicon oxide, first silicon oxide and silicon oxide hard mask as a protective layer for the floating gate structures.

[0111] So far, the method for manufacturing shallow trench isolations according to the present invention is already described. The storage cell area and the peripheral area are separately etched, so that the characteristic dimension, shape, and trench etching depth of the storage cell area itself are controlled more accurately. The shallow trenches in the storage cell area and the peripheral area are separately filled to form shallow trench isolations, which can effectively solve the stress dislocation defect in the peripheral area. According to the present invention, the yield of the storage device can be effectively improved.

[0112] So far, the embodiments of the method for manufacturing shallow trench isolations according to the present invention are already described. Although the present disclosure is described with respect to specific exemplary embodiments, it would be apparent that various modifications and changes can be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, this description and the accompanying drawings are considered to be illustrative but not restrictive.

[0113] It should be understood that this description would not be used to explain or limit the scope or significance of the claims. Moreover, in the foregoing detailed description, it can be seen that various features are combined together in a single embodiment for the purpose of simplifying the present disclosure. The method of the present disclosure should not be construed as reflecting the claimed embodiments require more features than those specifically listed in each claim. Conversely, as reflected in the appended claims, the creative subject matters are fewer than all features of a single embodiment disclosed. Accordingly, the appended claims are hereby incorporated in detailed descriptions, and each claim serves as an individual embodiment.

[0114] One embodiment or embodiments mentioned in this description are intended to be included in at least one embodiment of a circuit or method in conjunction with the specific features, structures, or characteristics described in the embodiment(s). The phrase “an embodiment” that appears everywhere in the description does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment.