A compatible technique for the formation of thin tantalum film resistors on silicon integrated circuits

A problem in the production of silicon integrated circuits has been yield limitation and applicability restriction due to the large variation and temperature sensitivity of diffused silicon resistors. Use of a thin-film resistive complement on silicon integrated circuits improves performance of many microcircuits heretofore made by the silicon planar process alone. The technique for thin-film on silicon integrated circuits is based on a two-metal resistor-conductor system: tantalum and aluminum. Tantalum was selected as the resistive material because it can be cathodically sputtered with ease, and a wide range of specific resistivity is available as a result of the controlled energy sputtering technique. The process involves production of the active element part of the circuit with standard silicon integrated circuit planar techniques, including contacting the cuts with deposited aluminum. The only deviation from the standard process lies in leaving some unetched SiO2surface area for resistor deposition. Tantalum is cathodically sputtered over the wafer, and delineated by standard photolithographic techniques to form resistor, conductor, and pad areas. A second layer of aluminum is then vacuum deposited over the wafer, and this is delineated to cover the pad and conductor areas of the tantalum with a high conductivity overlay. The exposed tantalum is then thermally stabilized and the final sheet resistivity adjusted by the resulting controlled sheet resistivity increase. The resulting circuits contain stable resistors with tolerance distributions of ±5 percent to ±10 percent, and TCR of -200 to -300 PPM/°C. The silicon active elements in the circuits do not degrade as a result of the thin-film resistor formation.