Effect of fluorine addition to plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition silicon oxide film

One solution to reduce the time constant of ultra large scale integrated circuit (ULSI) is the use of a low dielectric constant intermetal film like fluorinated silicon oxide (SiOF). We could obtain SiOF films with low dielectric constant as low as 2.6 and good step coverage by adding CF4 to SiH4 and N2O in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process. To investigate the dielectric constants due to each polarization and the reason for the decrease in the dielectric constant, we used capacitance-voltage (C-V) and ellipsometry measurements, and Kramers-Kronig transformation. The decrease in dielectric constant could not be completely explained by the reduction in ionic and electronic polarization. We could detect silanol groups, Si-OH in the films and their decrease with increasing CF4 flow rate. It is suggested that the main polarization component to decrease dielectric constant is such as orientational polarization. The step coverage of film was improved by adding CF4. It is suggested that the reduction in the sticking probability of films forming species due to the change in surface state improved the step coverage.