A brief overview of atomic layer deposition and etching in the semiconductor processing

Paper i proceeding, 2016

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) and atomic layer etching (ALE) are two important techniques in the semiconductor processing, which focus ultra-Thin film deposition and etching, respectively. Both of them have the self-limiting surface behavior, and could realize the atomic-scale fidelity in the deposition and etching processes. Unlike traditional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD), ALD has good step coverage, atomic-scale thickness controllability, and composition uniformity at low growth temperature. Compared with traditional continuous-wave plasma etching, ALE has smooth surface, excellent depth uniformity and atomic-scale thickness controllability. In this review, their fundamental and applications have been discussed.