Patent ID: 8524612

Claim:
A method for processing a substrate, the method comprising: applying photoresist to the substrate; exposing the photoresist to light via a stepper; patterning the resist with a pattern and transferring the pattern to the substrate; selectively removing the photoresist from the substrate; placing the substrate into a process station of a semiconductor processing apparatus; and in the process station: in a first phase: generating precursor radicals off of a surface of the substrate, and adsorbing the precursor radicals to the surface to form surface active species, in a first purge phase, purging residual precursor from the process station, in a second phase, supplying a reactive plasma to the surface, the reactive plasma being configured to react with the surface active species and generate the thin conformal film, wherein the thin conformal film is selected from the group consisting of a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride film, a silicon carbide film, and a silicon boride film, and in a second purge phase, purging residual reactant from the process station.