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There has been considerable interest in the development of isotropic atomic layer etching (ALE) for the conformal removal of thin films. Material selectivity is crucial for the development of isotropic ALE because the next generation of semiconductor devices will be constructed with miniaturized 3D structures using a variety of very thin films. We developed plasma-assisted thermal-cyclic ALE, which is a repetition of surface modification by plasma exposure and removal of the modified surface by infrared heating. We developed a 300-mm tool, namely, dry chemical removal (DCR), which is equipped with an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source and infrared lamps, to facilitate rapid thermal desorption of the modified surface. An important feature of the plasma-assisted thermal-cyclic ALE is that it has more tuning knobs than that of conventional ALE because it uses two temperatures: a low temperature for surface modification and an elevated temperature for the removal of the modified surface. This paper presents the selective ALE of various materials, i.e., Si3N4, TiN, W, and SiGe using the developed tool. The mechanisms of the selectivity are divided into two categories: formation of an ammonium salt-based modified layer and selectivity control by adjusting the infrared heating time. This paper reviews the selective ALE mechanisms, focusing on the results of in situ analysis of surface reactions, and presents some of the latest findings.
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