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AssigneesCornell Research Foundation, Inc., Intel Corporation, Sematech, Inc.
InventorsValery M. Dubin, Yosef Shacham-Diamand, Chiu H. Ting, Bin Zhao, Prahalad K. Vasudev
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A method of utilizing electroless copper deposition to form interconnects on a semiconductor wafer. Once a via or a trench is formed in a dielectric layer, a titanium nitride (TiN) or tantalum (Ta) barrier layer is blanket deposited. Then, a contact displacement technique is used to form a thin activation seed layer of copper on the barrier layer. An electroless deposition technique is then used to auto-catalytically deposit copper on the activated barrier layer. The electroless copper deposition continues until the via/trench is filled. Subsequently, the surface is polished by an application of chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) to remove excess copper and barrier material from the surface, so that the only copper and barrier material remaining are in the via/trench openings. Then an overlying silicon nitride (SiN) layer is formed above the exposed copper in order to form a dielectric barrier layer. The copper interconnect is fully encapsulated from the adjacent material by the TiN (or Ta) and the SiN layers.
A method of activating a surface of a diffusion barrier layer for preventing diffusion of copper into dielectric material in order to deposit copper by electroless deposition, comprising the steps of:
In a fabrication of a semiconductor device, a method of activating a surface of a material used as a copper diffusion barrier when disposed as a barrier layer for electroless deposition of copper, comprising the steps of:
In a formation of a semiconductor interconnect structure in which two conductive regions are separated by a dielectric layer and connected by said interconnect structure, a method of electrolessly depositing copper to form said interconnect structure, comprising the steps of:
In a formation of a semiconductor interconnect structure in which two conductive regions are separated by a dielectric layer and connected by said interconnect structure, a method of electrolessly depositing copper to form said interconnect structure, comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.