Chapter I describes deposition as a basic microelectronics technique.
Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is a technique widely
accepted in microelectronics for the deposition of amorphous dielectric
films such as silicon nitride and silicon oxide. The main advantage of
PECVD stems from the intro- duction of plasma energy to the CVD
environment, which makes it possible to promote chemical reactions at
relatively low temperatures. A natural extension of this is to use this
plasma energy to lower the temperature required to obtain a crystalline
deposit. This chapter discusses the PECVD technique and its ap-
plication to the deposition of dielectric, semiconductor, and conductor
films of interest to microelectronics. Chapter 2 acquaints the reader
with the technology and capabilities of plasma processing. Batch etching
reactors and etching processes are approaching ma- turity after more
than ten years of development. Requirements of anisotropic and selective
etching have been met using a variety of reactor configurations and
etching gases. The present emphasis is the integration of plasma etching
processes into the overall fabrication sequence. Chapter 3 reviews
recent advances in high pressure oxidation technology and its
applications to integrated circuits. The high pressure oxidation system,
oxi- dation mechanisms, oxidation-induced stacking faults, impurity
segregation, and oxide quality are described. Applications to bipolar
and MOS devices are also presented.