Patent ID: 11959167
Assignee: APPLIED MATERIALS, INC.
Field: Semiconductors (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC C  H | IPC C  H

Claim 0:
1. A method for capping a copper surface on a substrate, comprising:
positioning a substrate within a processing chamber, wherein the substrate comprises a contaminated copper surface and a dielectric surface;
exposing the contaminated copper surface to a reducing agent while forming a metallic copper surface during a pre-treatment process;
selectively forming a cobalt capping layer on the metallic copper surface while leaving exposed the dielectric surface, comprising:
exposing the substrate to a cobalt precursor gas to form a sublayer of the cobalt capping layer during a vapor deposition process;
exposing the sublayer of the cobalt capping layer to a plasma during a post-treatment process; and
repeating the vapor deposition process and the post-treatment process a plurality of times to deposit additional sublayers to form the cobalt capping layer; and

depositing a dielectric layer on the cobalt capping layer and the dielectric surface.