Dry etching of poly-Si/TaN/HfSiON gate stack for advanced complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor devices

A novel dry etching process of a poly-Si/TaN/HfSiON gate stack for advanced complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices is investigated. Our strategy to process a poly-Si/TaN/HfSiON gate stack is that each layer of gate stack is selectively etched with a vertical profile. First, a three-step plasma etching process is developed to get a vertical poly-Si profile and a reliable etch-stop on a TaN metal gate. Then different BCl3-based plasmas are applied to etch the TaN metal gate and find that BCl3/Cl2/O2/Ar plasma is a suitable choice to get a vertical TaN profile. Moreover, considering that Cl2 almost has no selectivity to Si substrate, BCl3/Ar plasma is applied to etch HfSiON dielectric to improve the selectivity to Si substrate after the TaN metal gate is vertically etched off by the optimized BCl3/Cl2/O2/Ar plasma. Finally, we have succeeded in etching a poly-Si/TaN/HfSiON stack with a vertical profile and almost no Si loss utilizing these new etching technologies.