Test structures for hillock growth, via filling and for measuring the quality of thin films

Author

Bennett, D.J. ; O´Hara, A. ; Underwood, I. ; Walton, A.J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Edinburgh Univ., UK

fYear

1997

Firstpage

11

Lastpage

15

Abstract

A test structure for assessing the quality of thin aluminium films is described. An analysis of the relationship between grain structure and hillock growth in small exposed areas of thin films during high temperature processing shows that there is a relationship between hillock growth, grain size and grain boundary structure. The test structure consists of arrays of via holes of various sizes etched in a thin layer of SiO₂ deposited at low temperature onto the metal surface. After furnace annealing, the number of vias of each size which contain hillocks can be interpreted to obtain information on film quality

Keywords

aluminium; annealing; grain boundary diffusion; integrated circuit metallisation; metallic thin films; plasma CVD coatings; semiconductor device metallisation; surface diffusion; thermal stresses; Al-SiO₂; film quality; furnace annealing; grain boundary structure; high temperature processing; hillock growth; test structure; via filling; via holes; Aluminum; Annealing; Etching; Filling; Furnaces; Grain boundaries; Grain size; Temperature; Testing; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microelectronic Test Structures, 1997. ICMTS 1997. Proceedings. IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Monterey, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3243-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICMTS.1997.589295

Filename

589295