• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2020

As an interconnect scaling faces a technical bottleneck, the device stacking technologies have been developed for miniaturization, low cost and high performance. To manufacture a stacked device structure, a vertical interconnect becomes a key process to enable signal and power integrities. Most bonding materials used in stacked structures are currently solder or Cu pillar with Sn cap, but copper is emerging as the most important bonding material due to fine-pitch patternability and high electrical performance. Copper bonding has advantages such as CMOS compatible process, high electrical and thermal conductivities, and excellent mechanical integrity, but it has major disadvantages of high bonding temperature, quick oxidation, and planarization requirement. There are many copper bonding processes such as dielectric bonding, copper direct bonding, copper-oxide hybrid bonding, copper-polymer hybrid bonding, etc.. As copper bonding evolves, copper-oxide hybrid bonding is considered as the most promising bonding process for vertically stacked device structure. This paper reviews current research trends of copper bonding focusing on the key process of Cu-SiO₂ hybrid bonding.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.109-113
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• 2012

Electromigration-induced void evolutions in typical upper and lower layer dual-inlaid Copper (Cu) interconnect structures were simulated by applying a phenomenological model resorting to Monte Carlo based simulations, which considers redistribution of heterogeneously nucleated voids and/or pre-existing vacancy clusters at the Copper/dielectric cap interface during electromigration. The results indicate that this model can qualitatively explain the electromigration-induced void evolutions observations in many studies reported by several researchers heretofore. These findings warrant need to re-investigate technologically important electromigration mechanisms by developing rigorous models based on similar concepts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.64-64
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• 2009

As the advanced packaging technology developing, Copper electro-plating processing has be wildly utilized in the semiconductor interconnect technique. Chemical solution monitoring methods, including PH and gravity measurement exist in industry, but economical and practical real-time monitoring has not been achieved yet. Red-green-blue (RGB) color sensor can successfully monitor the condition of $CuSO_4$ solution during electric copper plating process. Comparing the intensity variations of the RGB data and optical spectroscopy data, strong correlation between two in-situ sensors have shown.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.188-188
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• 2011

Recently, scaling down of ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) circuit of CMOS (Complementary Meta Oxide Semiconductor) based electronic devices, the electronic devices, become much faster and smaller size that are promising property of semiconductor market. However, very narrow interconnect line width has some disadvantages. Deposition of conformal and thin barrier is not easy. And metallization process needs deposition of diffusion barrier and glue layer for EP/ELP deposition. Thus, there is not enough space for copper filling process. In order to get over these negative effects, simple process of copper metallization is important. In this study, Cu-V alloy layer was deposited using of DC/RF magnetron sputter deposition system. Cu-V alloy film was deposited on the plane SiO2/Si bi-layer substrate with smooth surface. Cu-V film's thickness was about 50 nm. Cu-V alloy film deposited at $150^{\circ}C$. XRD, AFM, Hall measurement system, and AES were used to analyze this work. For the barrier formation, annealing temperature was 300, 400, $500^{\circ}C$ (1 hour). Barrier thermal stability was tested by I-V(leakage current) and XRD analysis after 300, 500, $700^{\circ}C$ (12 hour) annealing. With this research, over $500^{\circ}C$ annealed barrier has large leakage current. However vanadium-based diffusion barrier annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ has good thermal stability. Therefore thermal stability of vanadium-based diffusion barrier is desirable for copper interconnection.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.41.2-41.2
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• 2011

Recently, scaling down of ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) circuit of CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) based electronic devices become much faster speed and smaller size than ever before. However, very narrow interconnect line width causes some drawbacks. For example, deposition of conformal and thin barrier is not easy moreover metallization process needs deposition of diffusion barrier and glue layer. Therefore, there is not enough space for copper filling process. In order to overcome these negative effects, simple process of copper metallization is required. In this research, Cu-V thin alloy film was formed by using RF magnetron sputter deposition system. Cu-V alloy film was deposited on the plane $SiO_2$/Si bi-layer substrate with smooth and uniform surface. Cu-V film thickness was about 50 nm. Cu-V layer was deposited at RT, 100, 150, 200, and $250^{\circ}C$. XRD, AFM, Hall measurement system, and XPS were used to analyze Cu-V thin film. For the barrier formation, Cu-V film was annealed at 200, 300, 400, 500, and $600^{\circ}C$ (1 hour). As a result, V-based thin interlayer between Cu-V film and $SiO_2$ dielectric layer was formed by itself with annealing. Thin interlayer was confirmed by TEM (Transmission Electron Microscope) analysis. Barrier thermal stability was tested with I-V (for measuring leakage current) and XRD analysis after 300, 400, 500, 600, and $700^{\circ}C$ (12 hour) annealing. With this research, over $500^{\circ}C$ annealed barrier has large leakage current. However V-based diffusion barrier annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ has good thermal stability. Thus, thermal stability of vanadium-based thin interlayer as diffusion barrier is good for copper interconnection.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.919-923
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• 2010

Copper pillar tin bump (CPTB) was developed for high density chip interconnect technology. Copper pillar tin bumps that have $100{\mu}m$ pitch were introduced with fabrication process using a KM -1250 dry film photoresist (DFR), copper electroplating method and Sn electro-less plating method. Mechanical shear strength measurements were introduced to characterize the bonding process as a function of thermo-compression. Shear strength has maximum value with $330^{\circ}C$ and 500 N thenno-compression process. Through the simulation work, it was proved that when the copper pillar tin bump decreased in its size, it was largely affected by the copper oxidation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.140-140
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• 2018

The 3D interconnect technologies have been appeared, as the density of Integrated Circuit (IC) devices increases. Through Silicon Via (TSV) process is an important technology in the 3D interconnect technologies. And the process is used to form a vertically electrical connection through silicon dies. This TSV process has some advantages that short length of interconnection, high interconnection density, low electrical resistance, and low power consumption. Because of these advantages, TSVs could improve the device performance higher. The fabrication process of TSV has several steps such as TSV etching, insulator deposition, seed layer deposition, metallization, planarization, and assembly. Among them, TSV metallization (i.e. TSV filling) was core process in the fabrication process of TSV because TSV metallization determines the performance and reliability of the TSV interconnect. TSVs were commonly filled with metals by using the simple electrochemical deposition method. However, since the aspect ratio of TSVs was become a higher, it was easy to occur voids and copper filling of TSVs became more difficult. Using some additives like an accelerator, suppressor and leveler for the void-free filling of TSVs, deposition rate of bottom could be fast whereas deposition of side walls could be inhibited. The suppressor was adsorbed surface of via easily because of its higher molecular weight than the accelerator. However, for high aspect ratio TSV fillers, the growth of the top of via can be accelerated because the suppressor is replaced by an accelerator. The substitution of the accelerator and the suppressor caused the side wall growth and defect generation. The suppressor was used as Single additive electrodeposition of TSV to overcome the constraints. At the electrochemical deposition of high aspect ratio of TSVs, the suppressor as single additive could effectively suppress the growth of the top surface and the void-free bottom-up filling became possible. Generally, copper was used to fill TSVs since its low resistivity could reduce the RC delay of the interconnection. However, because of the large Coefficients of Thermal Expansion (CTE) mismatch between silicon and copper, stress was induced to the silicon around the TSVs at the annealing process. The Keep Out Zone (KOZ), the stressed area in the silicon, could affect carrier mobility and could cause degradation of the device performance. Cobalt can be used as an alternative material because the CTE of cobalt was lower than that of copper. Therefore, using cobalt could reduce KOZ and improve device performance. In this study, high-aspect ratio TSVs were filled with cobalt using the electrochemical deposition. And the filling performance was enhanced by using the suppressor as single additive. Electrochemical analysis explains the effect of suppressor in the cobalt filling bath and the effect of filling behavior at condition such as current type was investigated.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.11 no.9
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• pp.802-809
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• 2001

Electroplating is an attractive alternative deposition method for copper with the need for a conformal and conductive seed layer In addition, the Cu seed layer should be highly pure so as not to compromise the effective resistivity of the filled copper interconnect structure. This seed layer requires low electrical resistivity, low levels of impurities, smooth interface, good adhesion to the barrier metal and low thickness concurrent with coherence for ensuring void-free fill. The electrical conductivity of the surface plays an important role in formation of initial Cu nuclei, Cu nucleation is much easier on the substrate with higher electrical conductivities. It is also known that the nucleation processes of Cu are very sensitive to surface condition. In this study, copper seed layers deposited by magnetron sputtering onto a tantalum nitride barrier layer were used for electroplating copper in the forward pulsed mode. Prior to electroplating a copper film, the Cu seed layer was cleaned by plasma H$_2$ and $N_2$. In the plasma treatment exposure tome was varied from 1 to 20 min and plasma power from 20 to 140W. Effects of plasma pretreatment to Cu seed/Tantalum nitride (TaN)/borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG) samples on electroplating of copper (Cu) films were investigated.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.213-217
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• 2007

Copper has been used as an interconnect material in the fabrication of semiconductor devices, because of its higher electrical conductivity and superior electro-migration resistance. Chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) technique is required to planarize the overburden Cu film in an interconnect process. Various problems such as dishing, erosion, and delamination are caused by the high pressure and chemical effects in the Cu CMP process. But these problems have to be solved for the fabrication of the next generation semiconductor devices. Therefore, new process which is electro-chemical mechanical polishing(ECMP) or electro-chemical mechanical planarization was introduced to solve the technical difficulties and problems in CMP process. In the ECMP process, Cu ions are dissolved electrochemically by the applying an anodic potential energy on the Cu surface in an electrolyte. And then, Cu complex layer are mechanically removed by the mechanical effects between pad and abrasive. This paper focuses on the manufacturing of ECMP system and its process. ECMP equipment which has better performance and stability was manufactured for the planarization process.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.162-167
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• 2014

The primary purpose of this research is to investigate how much the complexing agent in electroless Cu electrolytes will affect adhesion strength between copper film and Ta diffusion barrier for Cu interconnect of semiconductor. The adhesion strength using rochelle's salt as complexing agent was higher than the case of using EDTA-4Na. Effect of complexing agent on adhesion strength and electrical resistivity was studied in crystal structural point of view.