Effects Of Post Annealing And Oxidation Processes On The Removal Of Damage Generated During The Shallow Trench Etch Process

Shallow trench isolation(ST1) is a promising key technology for the deep submicron device isolation of silicon integrated circuits which replaces conventional local oxidation of silicon(LOC0S) type of isolation[l-2]. Currently, chlorine and bromine-based plasmas are widely studied in the trench etch processes from the experience of the anisotropic etching of highly doped gate polysilicon[3-4]. However, the most studies are concentrated on controlling etch profile and selectivity while maintaining the etch uniformity, and the effects of these gas combination on the remaining defects during the shallow trench etch processes are not well investigated. The purpose of this work is to study the effects of gas combinations on the formation of defects and the degree of removal of them by the following post-etch annealing and oxidation processes.