Stability and application to multilevel metallization of fluorine-doped silicon oxide by high-density plasma chemical vapor deposition

We report the application of biased high-density-plasma-chemical-vapor-depo sited (HDP-CVD) SiOF films to multilevel metallization technology. We discu ss the reason for the SiOF film's low dielectric constant and illustrate th e optimal deposition conditions. The fluorine concentration in the HDP-CVD SiOF film can affect the gap filling characteristics. We observed that the dielectric constant of this SiOF film is 3.7 for a fluorine concentration o f 7.3 at.%. This film was successfully applied to intermetal dielectrics an d the parasitic capacitance was 13% lower than that of a SiO2 film.