US Patent Application 17824889. SELECTIVE METAL REMOVAL WITH FLOWABLE POLYMER simplified abstract

SELECTIVE METAL REMOVAL WITH FLOWABLE POLYMER

Organization Name

Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor(s)

Liqi Wu of San Jose CA (US)

Feng Q. Liu of San Jose CA (US)

Bhaskar Jyoti Bhuyan of San Jose CA (US)

James Hugh Connolly of Dublin (IE)

Zhimin Qi of Fremont CA (US)

Jie Zhang of Sunnyvale CA (US)

Wei Dou of Santa Clara CA (US)

Aixi Zhang of Sunnyvale CA (US)

Mark Saly of Santa Clara CA (US)

Jiang Lu of Milpitas CA (US)

Rongjun Wang of Dublin CA (US)

David Thompson of San Jose CA (US)

Xianmin Tang of San Jose CA (US)

SELECTIVE METAL REMOVAL WITH FLOWABLE POLYMER - A simplified explanation of the abstract

This abstract first appeared for US patent application 17824889 titled 'SELECTIVE METAL REMOVAL WITH FLOWABLE POLYMER

Simplified Explanation

- The patent application describes methods for selectively removing metal material from the top surface and sidewalls of a feature. - The metal material that is covered by a flowable polymer material is not affected by the removal process. - The metal material is formed using physical vapor deposition, resulting in a relatively thin sidewall thickness. - After removing the metal material from the top surface, any remaining metal material on the sidewall can be etched using an additional etch process. - The resulting metal layer at the bottom of the feature helps with selective metal gapfill of the feature.

Original Abstract Submitted

Embodiments of the disclosure relate to methods for selectively removing metal material from the top surface and sidewalls of a feature. The metal material which is covered by a flowable polymer material remains unaffected. In some embodiments, the metal material is formed by physical vapor deposition resulting in a relatively thin sidewall thickness. Any metal material remaining on the sidewall after removal of the metal material from the top surface may be etched by an additional etch process. The resulting metal layer at the bottom of the feature facilitates selective metal gapfill of the feature.