• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.276-280
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• 2010

Copper(Cu) as an interconnecting metal layer can replace aluminum (Al) in IC fabrication since Cu has low electrical resistivity, showing high immunity to electromigration compared to Al. However, it is very difficult for copper to be patterned by the dry etching processes. The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been introduced and widely used as the mainstream patterning technique for Cu in the fabrication of deep submicron integrated circuits in light of its capability to reduce surface roughness. But this process leaves a large amount of residues on the wafer surface, which must be removed by the post-CMP cleaning processes. Copper corrosion is one of the critical issues for the copper metallization process. Thus, in order to understand the copper corrosion problems in post-CMP cleaning solutions and study the effects of DC biases and post-CMP cleaning solution concentrations on the Cu film, a constant voltage was supplied at various concentrations, and then the output currents were measured and recorded with time. Most of the cases, the current was steadily decreased (i.e. resistance was increased by the oxidation). In the lowest concentration case only, the current was steadily increased with the scarce fluctuations. The higher the constant supplied DC voltage values, the higher the initial output current and the saturated current values. However the time to be taken for it to be saturated was almost the same for all the DC supplied voltage values. It was indicated that the oxide formation was not dependent on the supplied voltage values and 1 V was more than enough to form the oxide. With applied voltages lower than 3 V combined with any concentration, the perforation through the oxide film rarely took place due to the insufficient driving force (voltage) and the copper oxidation ceased. However, with the voltage higher than 3 V, the copper ions were started to diffuse out through the oxide film and thus made pores to be formed on the oxide surface, causing the current to increase and a part of the exposed copper film inside the pores gets back to be oxidized and the rest of it was remained without any further oxidation, causing the current back to decrease a little bit. With increasing the applied DC bias value, the shorter time to be taken for copper ions to be diffused out through the copper oxide film. From the discussions above, it could be concluded that the oxide film was formed and grown by the copper ion diffusion first and then the reaction with any oxidant in the post-CMP cleaning solution.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.93-94
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• 2005

Cu metallization using electrochemical plating(ECP) has played an important role in back end of line(BEOL) interconnect formation. In this work, we studied the optimized copper thickness using Bottom-up Gap-fill in Cu ECP, which is closely related with the pattern dependencies in Cu ECP and Cu dual damascene process at 0.13 ${\mu}m$ technology node. In order to select an optimized Cu ECP thickness, we examined Cu ECP bulge, Cu CMP dishing and electrical properties of via hole and line trench over dual damascene patterned wafers split into different ECP Cu thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 1999.07a
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• pp.30-30
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• 1999

알루미늄에 비해 전기저항이 낮고 electromigration 및 stress-migration에 대한 저항서이 높은 구리는 차세대 반도체 소자의 배선금속 재료로 여겨지고 있다. 최근 Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) 기술의 도래로 구리배선 공정의 채택이 더욱 앞당겨질 전망이다. 한편, 구리 MOCVD를 위해 다양한 전구체화합물이 합성되었고, 근래에는 Cu(I)(hfc)L (L은 Lewis base 형태의 ligand) 형태의 전구체를 이용한 많은 증착 연구를 통하여 순수하고 전기저항이 낮은 구리 박막의 증착이 보고되었다. 구리 MOCVD의 가장 큰 문제점은 증착속도가 150-$^{\circ}C$20$0^{\circ}C$에서 500$\AA$/min 이하로 낮고 또한 증착된 필름 표면이 매우 거칠다는 데 있다. 이러한 단점으로 인해 전기화학적 증착후 CMP를 적용하는 것이 더욱 경제적이라는 견해가 우세해 지고 있다. 본 강연에서는 박막의 증착 속도와 표면 거칠기를 동시에 향사시키기 위해 catalytic surfactant를 이용한 새로운 MOCVD 개념을 도입하고, 구리 MOCVD에서 단원자층으로 흡착된 요오드 원자가 그 역할을 수행할 수 있음을 보이겠다. 또 요오드원자가 표면반응을 어떻게 수정하여 활성화에너지를 낮추는가를 반응메카니즘으로 밝히고 표면 평탄화의 미시적 해석을 제공하고자 한다. Catalytic Surfactant의 개념은 다른 박막 재료의 MOCVD에도 적용될 수 있으며, 나아가 적절한 기판 표면처리를 통하여 epitaxy도 가능할 것으로 본다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.05c
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• pp.166-169
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• 2003

In this study, we evaluated the characteristics by the addition of 3 different kinds of nonionic surfactant to improve the dispersion stability of slurries. Slurry stability is an issue in any industry in which settling of particles can result in poor performance. So we observed the variation of particle size and settling rate when the concentration and addition time of surfactant are changed. When the surfactant is added after milling process, the particle size and pH became low. It is supposed that the particle agglomeration was disturbed by adsorption of surfactant on alumina abrasive. The settling rate was relatively stable when nonionic surfactant is added about 0.1~1.0 wt%. When molecular weight(MW) is too small like Brij 35, it was appeared low effect on dispersion stability. Because it can't prevent coagulation and subsequent settling with too small MW. The proper quality of MW for slurry stability was presented about 500,000. Consequently, the addition of nonionic surfactant to alumina slurry has been shown to have very good effect on slurry stabilization. If we apply this results to copper CMP process, it is thought that we will be able to obtain better yield.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.5-10
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• 2007

Using a reference slurry, ammonium dodecyl sulfate (ADS), an anionic and environmentally friendly surfactant, was investigated as an alternative to BTA for its inhibition and lubrication characteristics. Results demonstrated that the inhibition efficiency of ADS was superior to that of BTA. Coefficient of friction (COF) was the lowest when the slurry contained ADS. This suggested that adsorbed ADS on the surface provided lubricating action thereby reducing the wear between the contacting surfaces. Temperature results were consistent with the COF and removal rate data. ADS showed the lowest temperature rise again confirming the softening effect of the adsorbed surfactant layer and less energy dissipation due to friction. Spectral analysis of shear force showed that increasing the pad-wafer sliding velocity at constant wafer pressure shifted the high frequency spectral peaks to lower frequencies while increasing the variance of the frictional force. Addition of ADS reduced the fluctuating component of the shear force and the extent of the pre-existing stick-slip phenomena caused by the kinematics of the process and collision event between pad asperities with the wafer. By contrast, in the case of BTA, there were no such observed benefits but instead undesirable effects were seen at some polishing conditions. This work underscored the importance of real-time force spectroscopy in elucidating the adsorption, lubrication and inhibition of additives in slurries in CMP.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.375-375
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• 2010

CdTe as an absorber material is widely used in thin film solar cells with the heterostructure due to its almost ideal band gap energy of 1.45 eV, high photovoltaic conversion efficiency, low cost and stable performance. The deposition methods and preparation conditions for the fabrication of CdTe are very important for the achievement of high solar cell conversion efficiency. There are some rearranged reports about the deposition methods available for the preparation of CdTe thin films such as close spaced sublimation (CSS), physical vapor deposition (PVD), vacuum evaporation, vapor transport deposition (VTD), closed space vapor transport, electrodeposition, screen printing, spray pyrolysis, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and RF sputtering. The RF sputtering method for the preparation of CdTe thin films has important advantages in that the thin films can be prepared at low growth temperatures with large-area deposition suitable for mass-production. The authors reported that the optical and electrical properties of CdTe thin film were closely connected by the thickness-uniformity of the film in the previous study [1], which means that the better optical absorbance and the higher carrier concentration could be obtained in the better condition of thickness-uniformity for CdTe thin film. The thickness-uniformity could be controlled and improved by the some process parameters such as vacuum level and RF power in the sputtering process of CdTe thin films. However, there is a limitation to improve the thickness-uniformity only in the preparation process [1]. So it is necessary to introduce the external or additional method for improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film because the cell size of thin film solar cell will be enlarged. Therefore, the authors firstly applied the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin films with a G&P POLI-450 CMP polisher [2]. CMP process is the most important process in semiconductor manufacturing processes in order to planarize the surface of the wafer even over 300 mm and to form the copper interconnects with damascene process. Some important CMP characteristics for CdTe were obtained including removal rate (RR), WIWNU%, RMS roughness, and peak-to-valley roughness [2]. With these important results, the CMP process for CdTe thin films was performed to improve the thickness-uniformity of the sputtering-deposited CdTe thin film which had the worst two thickness-uniformities of them. Some optical properties including optical transmittance and absorbance of the CdTe thin films were measured by using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer (Varian Techtron, Cary500scan) in the range of 400 - 800 nm. After CMP process, the thickness-uniformities became better than that of the best condition in the previous sputtering process of CdTe thin films. Consequently, the optical properties were directly affected by the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film. The absorbance of CdTe thin films was improved although the thickness of CdTe thin film was not changed.