Patent 10176984 was granted and assigned to Lam Research on January, 2019 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Methods and apparatuses for selectively depositing silicon oxide on a silicon oxide surface relative to a silicon nitride surface are described herein. Methods involve pre-treating a substrate surface using ammonia and/or nitrogen plasma and selectively depositing silicon oxide on a silicon oxide surface using alternating pulses of an aminosilane silicon precursor and an oxidizing agent in a thermal atomic layer deposition reaction without depositing silicon oxide on an exposed silicon nitride surface.