Patent 7553427 was granted and assigned to Tokyo Electron on June, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method and apparatus are provided for plasma etching of Cu-containing layers in semiconductor devices using an aluminum source in the presence of a halogen-containing plasma. The aluminum source reacts with halogenated Cu-containing surfaces and forms volatile etch products that allows for anisotropic etching of Cu-containing layers using conventional plasma etching tools.