Patent ID: 7217658

Claim:
A method of depositing a dielectric film on a semiconductor substrate, the method comprising: providing a semiconductor substrate having a feature to be filled in a process chamber of a high density plasma chemical vapor deposition reactor; and depositing the dielectric film on the semiconductor substrate using a high density plasma chemical vapor deposition (HDPCVD) process, the HDPCVD process having deposition and sputter components, wherein the characteristics of the HDPCVD process are modulated such that the deposition component of the HDPCVD process initially dominates the sputter component of the HDPCVD process, and further wherein the HDPCVD process comprises a preheat stage and a deposition stage temporally separated by a transition stage, and wherein the HDPCVD process components are modulated such that: chemical species that are reactive with the substrate in a high density plasma are absent from the HDPCVD process chamber during the preheat stage, flow of substrate reactive species is started and gradually increased in the transition stage prior to application of HF plasma power, and HF plasma power is started and gradually increased after introduction of a silicon-containing precursor.