Gate oxide damage reduction and antenna yield improvement using low temperature preclean for sub-0.25 μm metallization

Author

Li, X. ; Hausmann, G. ; Subramani, M. ; Ngan, K. ; Yee, N. ; Chen, J. ; Parkhe, V. ; Stimson, B. ; Narasimhan, M. ; Chen, F. ; Young, D. ; Wood, J. ; Masterson, S. ; Abdul-Ridha, H. ; Cadieux, C. ; Brongo, M.

Author_Institution

Appl. Mater. Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

134

Lastpage

136

Abstract

This article describes a new generation of low temperature argon (Ar) sputtering preclean. A ceramic electrostatic chuck (E-Chuck) was integrated to provide active wafer cooling. Wafer temperature, which is critical to gate oxide degradation in a plasma ion bombardment and charging environment, was reduced from 250°C to 75°C. This significantly improved the antenna yield due to reduced gate oxide damage and achieved the same etch performance

Keywords

argon; cooling; dielectric thin films; electrostatic devices; etching; integrated circuit interconnections; integrated circuit metallisation; integrated circuit testing; integrated circuit yield; materials handling; sputtering; surface charging; surface cleaning; 250 C; 75 C; Ar; SiO₂-Si; active wafer cooling; antenna yield; antenna yield improvement; ceramic electrostatic chuck; etch performance; gate oxide damage; gate oxide damage reduction; gate oxide degradation; low temperature Ar sputtering preclean; low temperature argon sputtering preclean; low temperature preclean; metallization; plasma ion bombardment/charging environment; wafer temperature; Argon; Ceramics; Cooling; Degradation; Land surface temperature; Plasma accelerators; Plasma applications; Plasma sources; Plasma temperature; Sputtering;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Interconnect Technology, 1999. IEEE International Conference

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5174-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IITC.1999.787100

Filename

787100