US-20260130138-A1 - METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING OXIDE LAYER AND SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE

US20260130138A1US 20260130138 A1US20260130138 A1US 20260130138A1US-20260130138-A1

Abstract

The present disclosure discloses a method for manufacturing an oxide layer and a semiconductor device, which pertain to the field of semiconductor technology. The method for manufacturing the oxide layer includes: providing a semiconductor structure; forming a first oxide layer on the semiconductor structure in a first low-temperature environment; applying an oxygen plasma treatment on the first oxide layer and a part of the semiconductor structure in a second low-temperature environment, so that the first oxide layer is formed into a second oxide layer, where a compactness of the second oxide layer is greater than a compactness of the first oxide layer. The semiconductor device includes a semiconductor structure and a second oxide layer disposed on the semiconductor structure, where the second oxide layer is manufactured and formed using the aforementioned oxide layer fabrication method.

Inventors

Hong Yang
Songyi JIANG
Junjie Li
WEIHAI BU
Qianqian LIU
Xiaolei Wang
Jun Luo
Wenwu Wang

Assignees

Semiconductor Technology Innovation Center (Beijing) Corporation
Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Dates

Publication Date: 20260507
Application Date: 20250520
Priority Date: 20241107

Claims (10)

1 . A method for manufacturing an oxide layer, comprising: providing a semiconductor structure; forming a first oxide layer on the semiconductor structure in a first low-temperature environment; and applying an oxygen plasma treatment on the first oxide layer and a part of the semiconductor structure in a second low-temperature environment to obtain a second oxide layer, wherein a compactness of the second oxide layer is greater than a compactness of the first oxide layer.
2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein a temperature of the first low-temperature environment and/or the second low-temperature environment is less than or equal to 400° C.
3 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the forming a first oxide layer on the semiconductor structure comprises: submerging the semiconductor structure in an aqueous ozone solution to oxidize the semiconductor structure, so as to form the first oxide layer.
4 . The method according to claim 3 , wherein an ozone concentration in the aqueous ozone solution is greater than or equal to 3 ppm and less than or equal to 100 ppm; and/or, wherein an oxidation time of submerging the semiconductor structure in the aqueous ozone solution is greater than or equal to 3 seconds and less than or equal to 100 seconds.
5 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein a thickness of the second oxide layer is greater than or equal to 0.5 nm and less than or equal to 5 nm.
6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein a treatment temperature during the oxygen plasma treatment is greater than or equal to 200° C. and less than or equal to 300° C.
7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein a radio frequency power of the oxygen plasma treatment is greater than or equal to 500 W and less than or equal to 1000 W.
8 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein a treatment time of the oxygen plasma treatment is greater than or equal to 5 seconds and less than or equal to 1 hour.
9 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the second oxide layer comprises an interface oxide layer; and/or, wherein a material of the semiconductor structure comprises silicon; and/or, wherein the semiconductor structure comprises a source region, a drain region, and a channel region located between the source region and the drain region; the channel region is in contact with the source region and the drain region at two sides of the channel region in a length direction of the channel region; and the second oxide layer is formed on a periphery of the channel region.
10 . A semiconductor device, comprising: a semiconductor structure and a second oxide layer disposed on the semiconductor structure, wherein the second oxide layer is manufactured and formed using the method of claim 1 .

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202411587003.X, filed on Nov. 7, 2024, the entire content of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure pertains to the field of semiconductor technology, in particular to a method for manufacturing an oxide layer and a semiconductor device. BACKGROUND With continuous development of large-scale integrated circuit technology, higher requirements are imposed on oxide layers generally included in a transistor. On the one hand, due to the continuous reduction in the size of the transistor, there is an increasing requirement for a thermal budget in a process of manufacturing the transistor, which proposes higher requirements for the process of manufacturing the oxide layer. On the other hand, in order to meet requirements of performance and reliability for different transistors, the oxide layer needs to have good compactness, and it is required to precisely adjust a thickness of the oxide layer within a large range. However, related manufacturing methods are difficult to achieve the manufacturing of high compactness and thickness controllable oxide layers in a low-temperature environment, leading to degraded device performance and reliability of the semiconductor device including such oxide layer. SUMMARY In a first aspect, the present disclosure provides a method for manufacturing an oxide layer. The method for manufacturing the oxide layer includes the following steps. Firstly, providing a semiconductor structure. Next, a first oxide layer is formed on the semiconductor structure in a first low-temperature environment. Next, an oxygen plasma treatment is performed on the first oxide layer and a part of the semiconductor structure in a second low-temperature environment, so that the first oxide layer is formed into a second oxide layer. A compactness of the second oxide layer is greater than a compactness of the first oxide layer. In a case of adopting the above technical solution, the semiconductor structure is first subjected to pre-oxidation in a low-temperature ambient, so as to form a first oxide layer with relatively low compactness, and serves as a precursor for subsequent formation of the second oxide layer. Afterwards, in the second low-temperature environment, an oxygen plasma treatment is employed to facilitate reaction with the first oxide layer and a part of the semiconductor structure, so as to form the second oxide layer. The second oxide layer is used as the oxide layer manufactured by the method for manufacturing the oxide layer provided by the present disclosure. The formation of the second oxide layer using oxygen plasma includes the following steps. Firstly, oxygen is ionized into an oxygen plasma containing a plurality of reactive chemical species such as oxygen ions, oxygen radicals, and electrons through a radio frequency power supply. Then, the oxygen plasma is charged and accelerated through the radio frequency power supply, and the accelerated oxygen plasma undergoes directed bombardment of surfaces of the first oxide layer and the part of the semiconductor structure, so as to react with the first oxide layer and the part of the semiconductor structure. Since these oxygen plasmas have stronger oxidation ability compared to reactants in other oxidation processes, the first oxide layer and the part of the semiconductor structure may be fully oxidized, so as to form a relatively compact second oxide layer. At the same time, these oxygen plasmas accelerated by the radio frequency power supply have higher energy, which may penetrate the first oxide layer and the formed part of the second oxide layer, and may be injected into an interior of the semiconductor structure to oxidize atoms inside the semiconductor structure, so that a thickness of the formed second oxide layer has a large adjustment range, which is not prone to the limitation of thickness saturation of the oxide layer due to the oxidation of the surface of the semiconductor structure. In addition, the oxygen plasma adheres to plasma dynamics principles, and a relationship between a treatment time and the thickness of the oxide layer formed by performing an oxygen plasma treatment on the first oxide layer and the part of the semiconductor structure may be precisely described. Therefore, the thickness of the second oxide layer may be precisely controlled by controlling the time of the oxygen plasma treatment. Compared to the related art, the method for manufacturing the oxide layer provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure may be used to obtain a second oxide layer with high compactness, high thickness adjustment accuracy and large thickness adjustment range, and the semiconductor device including the second oxide layer have better reliability. However, in the related art, if only the oxygen plasma treatment is used to form the second oxide layer, in order to en