AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition
    Thin Film Wednesday Sessions
       Session TF+AS+EM+EN+MN-WeA

Invited Paper TF+AS+EM+EN+MN-WeA1
The Many Avatars of PVD

Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 2:20 pm, Room 111

Session: CV Infiltration Methods and Energetic and Thermal Properties of Thin Films
Presenter: Murali Narasimhan, Applied Materials, Inc.
Correspondent: Click to Email
Physical Vapor Deposition has been used for many years for depositing thin film coatings for diverse uses ranging from jewelry to industrial cutting tools. PVD has found usage in the manufacture of advanced semiconductor manufacturing for depositing various metals and some specialty dielectrics as well. The majority of high purity metal deposition for semiconductor use has been done using PVD although the use of CVD and ALD has increased over the years because of requirements of conformality and gap fill where conventional planar PVD has not been adequate. However, breakthroughs in PVD technology have been successful in extending the use of PVD to advanced semiconductor manufacturing nodes by changing the geometry of PVD sources and reactors and the nature of the plasma involved. Collimated and long-throw sources developed by the semiconductor equipment industry in the early '90s enabled the deposition of high-purity Ti to lower contact resistance for transistors. Reactive sputtering of TiN enabled a robust barrier for CVD W plugs used at the 0.5um node. Further, use of electromagnetic fields to ionize and then guide the plasma and sputtered ionized atoms has been successful in improving the conformality of PVD Ti films. Ionized Metal Plasma (IMP), Hollow-Cathode Magnetron (HCM) and Self-Ionized Plasma (SIP) were innovations in ionized PVD reactor design that led to widespread adoption of PVD TaN and PVD Cu for Cu interconnect barrier and seed layer production from the 90nm node to the present. The application of thermal energy on the substrate during PVD Al and Cu has been useful in improving the flow of deposited material and subsequent gap-fill of sub-micron features. The use of Radio Frequency (RF) energy to power the target has allowed for more efficient ionization at lower power levels. The application of a capacitive tuner to modulate the ion bombardment on the wafer and tailor the film properties of TiN for hard mask applications has enabled the realization of etched features at the 22nm node. Pulsed DC magnetrons enable sputtering of dielectric materials, thus opening up the controlled deposition of thin films of insulating films for various applications such as improving the brightness of high-efficiency LEDs. Multi-cathode off-axis PVD magnetrons have enabled the deposition of multi-layers of ultra-thin films for magnetic devices such as advanced in-plane and out-of plane MRAM and the manufacture of EUV mask blanks for sub 10nm manufacturing. This talk will present the above listed progression of PVD technology over the years and its use for many applications in semiconductor manufacturing.