AVS 47th International Symposium
    Dielectrics Wednesday Sessions
       Session DI+EL+MS-WeM

Paper DI+EL+MS-WeM6
A New Simple and Accurate Method to Measure Intra-Metal Capacitance of Low-K Fluorinated Silicon Dioxide

Wednesday, October 4, 2000, 10:00 am, Room 312

Session: Low K Dielectrics
Presenter: Y.W. Teh, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Authors: K.S. Wong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Y.W. Teh, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
T.C. Ang, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Singapore
S.Y. Loong, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Singapore
W.B. Loh, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Singapore
Y.C. Wong, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Singapore
Correspondent: Click to Email
An accurate and simple technique for intra-metal capacitance measurement is presented. This on-chip technique is based on a test structure design that utilizes only interdigitated capacitors sandwiched between metal plates. Compared to other techniques which utilize transistors in addition to the unknown interconnect capacitance to be characterized, this new technique requires only capacitors and thus much simpler processing and shorter cycle times but with the same level of accuracy. With this test structure design, no reference capacitor is needed. Capacitance voltage (C-V) method is commonly used for intra-metal capacitance measurement. However, the measurement accuracy is often compromised by probe-induced stray capacitance. In this paper, a new measurement technique that can eliminate this stray capacitance is reported. This new technique uses multiple probe configurations to obtain 3 capacitance values and these values can be used to eliminate the probe-induced stray capacitance and obtain the actual intra-metal capacitance. Results show much better accuracy than the conventional C-V measurement. Comparisons between the new technique, the conventional C-V measurement and the Charge-Base Capacitance Measurement (CBCM) techniques are made. Our results based on the new technique show great improvement in the measurement accuracy over the conventional technique. In addition, our results are consistent with the results obtained from the CBCM technique which requires the use of transistors and thus more complex processing and longer cycle times. In this paper, the different measurement techniques were evaluated on high-density plasma chemical vapor deposition (HDP-CVD) fluorinated silicon dioxide (SiOF) inter-level dielectric (IMD) films in 0.18um technology.