The organic low-k materials microstructure study

Author

Du, A.Y. ; Tung, C.H. ; Lu, D. ; Gui, D ; Chow, Y.F.

Author_Institution

Inst. of Microelectron., Singapore, Singapore

fYear

2002

fDate

2002

Firstpage

179

Lastpage

182

Abstract

The advancement in VLSI processes has reached such a stage that the RC delay caused by interconnects has played a major role in deciding the performance of the circuit. The low-k dielectric materials are the main research areas for next generation IC processes (N.H. Hendricks, Proc. DUMIC, pp. 17-26, 2000). The organic low-k materials are potential materials for ultra-low-k dielectrics. Due to the difficulty in TEM sample preparation, there is very little published data on microstructure study of organic low-k materials. In this paper, a few low-k organic materials are studied by TEM, EELS, FTIR and SIMS. The results show that the organic material can reach ultra low k value with good controlled nano-porous microstructure even though there is no significant change in the chemical bonding. The nano-porous structure causes the micro-roughness at the interface of dielectric layer with barrier layers.

Keywords

Fourier transform spectra; VLSI; dielectric thin films; electron energy loss spectra; integrated circuit interconnections; integrated circuit metallisation; integrated circuit testing; organic compounds; permittivity; secondary ion mass spectra; transmission electron microscopy; EELS; FTIR; IC process; SIMS; TEM sample preparation; VLSI process; chemical bonding; circuit performance; controlled nano-porous microstructure; dielectric layer/barrier layer interface; interconnect RC delay; interface micro-roughness; low-k dielectric materials; organic low-k materials microstructure; ultra-low-k dielectrics; Crystalline materials; Dielectric materials; Microstructure; Optical films; Optical microscopy; Organic materials; Performance analysis; Polymer films; Semiconductor films; Transmission electron microscopy;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, 2002. IPFA 2002. Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on the

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7416-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IPFA.2002.1025646

Filename

1025646