Abstract Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is expected to play an important role in future device fabrication due to various benefits, such as atomic level thickness control and excellent conformality. Plasma enhanced ALD (PE-ALD) allows deposition at significantly lower temperatures with better film properties compared to that of conventional thermal ALD. In addition, since ALD is a surface-sensitive deposition technique, surface modification through plasma exposure can be used to alter nucleation and adhesion. In this paper, characteristics of PE-ALD for various applications in semiconductor fabrication are presented through comparison to thermal ALD. The results indicate that the PE-ALD processes are versatile methods to enable nanoscale manufacturing in emerging applications.