Inventors:
- Santa Clara CA, US
Taewan KIM - San Jose CA, US
Christopher S. OLSEN - Fremont CA, US
Erika HANSEN - San Jose CA, US
International Classification:
H01L 21/02
H01L 27/11521
H01L 27/11568
H01L 21/28
Abstract:
Embodiments described herein generally relate to conformal oxidation processes for flash memory devices. In conventional oxidation processes for gate structures, growth rates have become too fast, ultimately creating non-conformal films. To create a preferred growth rate for SiOon SiNfilms, embodiments in this disclosure use a thermal combustion of a ternary mixture of H+O+NO to gain SiOout of Si containing compounds. Using this mixture provides a lower growth in comparison with using only Hand O, resulting in a lower sticking coefficient. The lower sticking coefficient allows an optimal amount of atoms to reach the bottom of the gate, improving the conformality in 3D NAND SiOoxidation layers, specifically for ONO replacement tunneling gate formation.
