AVS 50th International Symposium
    Thin Films Monday Sessions
       Session TF-MoA

Invited Paper TF-MoA1
The Application of Plasma for Metal Atomic Layer Deposition for Cu Interconnect Technology

Monday, November 3, 2003, 2:00 pm, Room 329

Session: Atomic Layer Deposition and Low-k
Presenter: H. Kim, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Authors: S.M. Rossnagel, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
H. Kim, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
As the semiconductor dimensions scale down to sub-65 nm regime with implementation of Cu interconnect technology, the need for introducing metal thin film deposition techniques with excellent conformality and thickness control at the nanometer scale has been increased. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is expected to play an important role in depositing thin layers in nanoscale Si device manufacturing. Among the key materials used for modern semiconductor processing, thin films of inert, refractory or noble materials will continue to be used in interconnect applications as diffusion barriers, seed and adhesion layers as well as potential front end applications such as contacts or gate metallization. The plasma technologies that have been widely used for various aspects of the semiconductor device processing can be extended into ALD areas. Plasma enhanced ALD (PE-ALD) allows deposition at significantly lower temperatures with better film properties than both conventional thermal ALD and chemical vapor deposition. This low temperature process makes PE-ALD more attractive for emerging low-k interconnect materials. In addition, since ALD is surface-sensitive deposition technique, surface modification by plasma exposure can be used to alter nucleation and adhesion. In this presentation, we will present the PE-ALD of Ta-based thin films for Cu interconnect technology and the surface modification by plasma for metal and nitride ALD processes.