The study of sputtered RF Ta on the PID in Cu dual damascene technology [plasma induced damage]

Different recipes of barrier metal using a sputtered Ta process in 0.13 μm dual gate oxide are developed. Low-throughput RF Ta, baseline Ta and high-throughput RF Ta have been simulated in the barrier metal sputtering process. The plasma charging damage is studied and gate leakage of related antenna structures is measured on these processes. It is found that turning on RF Ta can reduce thick gate leakage of the antenna structures, and the best plasma induced damage (PID) performance comes from a low-throughput RF Ta recipe.