Technologies / Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition technology

Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) is an excellent alternative for depositing a variety of thin films at lower temperatures (typically <350°C) than those utilized in CVD reactors (>650°C) without reducing film quality.

PECVD uses a plasma to transfer energy into a gas mixture. This transforms the gas mixture into reactive radicals, ions, neutral atoms and molecules, and other highly excited species. These atomic and molecular fragments interact with a substrate and, depending on the nature of these interactions, either etching or deposition processes occur at the surface. Since the formation of the reactive and energetic species in the gas phase occurs by collision in the gas phase, the substrate can be maintained at a low temperature. Hence, film formation can occur on substrates at a lower temperature than is possible in the conventional CVD process, avoiding common problems such as hillock growth, aluminium void formation and silicon precipitation which can occur at high temperatures.

Some of the desirable properties of PECVD films are:

• Good adhesion
• Low pinhole density
• Good step coverage
• Excellent uniformity

Applications of PECVD include deposition of:

• Passive and active waveguide layers
• Dielectric films
• Low stress and low temperature silicon nitride
• Amorphous silicon
• Silicon carbide

For more details about the specific benefits of STS' PECVD system, click here