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US 9,852,913 B2Granted
Wetting pretreatment for enhanced damascene metal filling
AssigneeNovellus Systems, Inc.
InventorsSteven T. Mayer, David W. Porter, Mark J. Willey
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed are pre-wetting apparatus designs and methods. These apparatus designs and methods are used to pre-wet a wafer prior to plating a metal on the surface of the wafer. Disclosed compositions of the pre-wetting fluid prevent corrosion of a seed layer on the wafer and also improve the filling rates of features on the wafer.
Claims11
A method of electroplating a layer of copper on a wafer substrate, the method comprising:
- (a) providing the wafer substrate having an exposed metal layer on at least a portion of its surface to a pre-wetting process chamber;
- (b) contacting the wafer substrate with a pre-wetting fluid under subatmospheric pressure, the pre-wetting fluid comprising water and copper ions, to form a layer of pre-wetting fluid on the wafer substrate;
- (c) contacting the pre-wetted wafer substrate with a plating solution, the plating solution comprising copper ions, cathodically biasing the wafer substrate and electroplating a layer of copper on the wafer substrate, wherein the concentration of copper ions in the pre-wetting fluid is greater than the concentration of copper ions in the plating solution.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.