AVS 50th International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Devices Tuesday Sessions
       Session EM+SC-TuP

Paper EM+SC-TuP6
Electroless Copper Deposition as a Seed Layer on TiSiN Barrier

Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 5:30 pm, Room Hall A-C

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: Y.C. EE, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Authors: Y.C. EE, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Z. Chen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
S. Xu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
L. Chan, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., Singapore
K.H. See, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., Singapore
S.B. Law, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., Singapore
Correspondent: Click to Email
Electroless deposition of copper as a seeding technology has received considerable attention in back-end-of-line device fabrication. This work explores the effects of plasmas processing parameters such as argon gas flow rate and nitrogen plasmas treatment time on the properties of electrolessly plated Cu on TiSiN barrier layers formed by a low-frequency inductively coupled plasma process. TiSiN films have emerged as a promising candidate for the future generation barrier material because of its good adhesion to Cu. The properties of deposited electroless copper were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), four-point resistivity probe, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission secondary electron microscope (FESEM). Comparison is made with the Cu seed layer on TiN. It is found that the required palladium activation time is greatly reduced on TiSiN. The results also show that there is a preferred crystal orientation of Cu in (111) plane. Cu grain size is within the range of 24-33 nm. The sheet resistance of the Cu seed layer is less than 1.2 @ohm@ per square area. The roughness of plated Cu layer largely follows the one of the underlying TiSiN. Good surface coverage of electroless Cu seed layer on TiSiN is obtained in our experiments.