Low contact resistance metallization for gigabit scale DRAM's using fully-dry cleaning by Ar/H/sub 2/ ECR plasma

A fully-dry cleaning technique with Ar/H/sub 2/ Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) plasma was developed as a low contact resistance metallization technology for gigabit scale DRAM contacts. By combining with ECR TiN/Ti-CVD, extremely low contact resistances of 296 /spl Omega/ and 350 /spl Omega/ for 0.3-/spl mu/m contact diameter with aspect ratio of 7 were realized on n/sup +/ and p/sup +/ diffusion layers, respectively. No leakage current was observed. By using this technology, a DRAM ULSI, which was planarized by Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) and had deep contact holes with aspect ratio of 6, was successfully demonstrated.