Title :
A Comprehensive study of reliability improvement for 65nm Cu/Low-k process
Author :
Liao, C.C. ; Gan, Z.H. ; Wu, Y.J. ; Zheng, K. ; Guo, R. ; Zhang, L.F. ; Ning, Jay
Author_Institution :
Semicond. Manuf. Int. Corp., Shanghai, China
Abstract :
BEOL reliability becomes increasing important issues as device dimensions are scaled for the Cu/low-k interconnects, including electromigration (EM), stress migration (SM), inter-line leakage, breakdown and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) characteristics of low-k dielectrics, and plasma-process induced damage (P2ID). This paper gives a summary of the BEOL reliability improvement for the 65 nm Cu/low-k process. The efforts for the reliability improvement include process control for metal dimension uniformity, the interface integrity between Cu and cap layer (SiCN), and via bottom integrity; and plasma control for the pre-metal dielectric (PMD) deposition, pre-clean before Cu barrier deposition and passivation etching for Al pad. The corresponding physical mechanisms for the respective improvements will also be discussed.
Keywords :
copper; electric breakdown; electromigration; etching; low-k dielectric thin films; silicon compounds; Cu; SiCN; back end of line reliability; barrier deposition; electromigration; interline leakage; low-k interconnects; low-k process; metal dimension uniformity; passivation etching; plasma control; premetal dielectric deposition; process control; reliability improvement; size 65 nm; stress migration; time-dependent dielectric breakdown; Dielectric breakdown; Dielectric devices; Electromigration; Passivation; Plasma applications; Plasma devices; Plasma properties; Process control; Samarium; Stress;
Conference_Titel :
Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, 2009. IPFA 2009. 16th IEEE International Symposium on the
Conference_Location :
Suzhou, Jiangsu
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-3911-9
Electronic_ISBN :
1946-1542
DOI :
10.1109/IPFA.2009.5232554
