Plasma‐Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition of Silicon Dioxide Films Using Tetraethoxysilane and Oxygen: Characterization and Properties of Films

SiO 2 films were deposited in a commercial single wafer parallel plate plasma deposition reactor using tetraethoxysilane as the silicon source. Deposition conditions were varied to produce films with widely differing properties. Electrical, optical, mechanical, and wet-etch-rate characterization were then used to investigate the as-deposited film quality. Moisture uptake was also measured and related to the initial properties. The films were studied in an ongoing investigation of silicon dioxide interlevel dielectric films used in multilevel ultra large scale integrated chip wiring