The kinetics of very-low-temperature silicon epitaxial growth on p-type, [100] Si wafers by confined plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) from mixtures of SiH4 and H-2 is studied. The results show that no effect due to temperature (288 similar to 351 degrees C) on the growth rate could be observed. At a plasma power of 5 W, the P-SiH4/P-H2 ratio can be as high as 2.7. The growth rate is inversely proportional to the H-2 pressure, and proportional to the silane pressure and the RF power. The mechanism of silicon epitaxial growth by confined PECVD is presented and the release of hydrogen from adsorbed SiHx (x = 2,3) seems to be the rate-determining step. It is found that a single Langmuir-Hinshelwood rate expression correlates all rate data with RF powers and pressures of silane and hydrogen.