Effects of the substrate temperature on the Cu seed layer formed using atomic layer deposition

Cu has replaced Al as the main interconnection material in ultra-large integrated circuits, reducing resistance capacitance delay and yielding higher electro-migration reliability. As feature size decreases, however, it has become more difficult to produce reliable Cu wiring. We studied a Cu seed layer deposited using plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD). The electrical properties of the PEALD Cu thin film with sub-10 nm thickness were determined by the continuities and morphologies of the films. At a deposition temperature of 150 degrees C. the resistivity of Cu thin films was 5.2 mu Omega-cm and the impurity content was below 5 atomic %. Based on these results, Cu seed layers were deposited on 32-nm Ta/SiO2 trench substrates, and electrochemical plating was performed under conventional conditions. A continuous seed layer was deposited using PEALD, resulting in a perfectly filling of the 32-nm sized trench. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work was supported by Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and the authors would also like to acknowledge the National Nanofab Center (NANO) for assistance with the STEM analysis