Tokyo Electron and Novellus Systems yesterday (1st December) announced the availability of a new integrated metallisation scheme which makes use of an ultra-thin ruthenium liner.

The copper interconnect solution - which is designed to target the 2Xnm generation and beyond - incorporates an ionised PVD TaN or Ti barrier, which is capped with the CVD ruthenium liner.

The resulting combination is then paired with proprietary copper wet seed and copper electrochemical deposition processes, which offers a complete filling of fine features at the 2Xnm node.

Go Okubo, Vice-President and General Manager at Tokyo Electron's single wafer deposition and business unit, explained that the development represents a technological breakthrough on two fronts.

He said: "One is the establishment of the innovative integration technology, which assures copper fill at 2Xnm and beyond, and opens new prospects for reducing line resistance.

"The other is the substantial reduction of the process steps without sacrificing the benefit of low CoC, which will contribute to maximising our customers' profit."

The main benefits of the ultra-thin ruthenium liner process for copper are that it provides excellent feature conformality and resistivity in damascene features which are less than or equal to 2nm, plus its consumer cost is far less than those of PVD Ru and ALD Ru.

Source:

Tokyo Electron and Novellus Systems Announce Breakthrough Results and Collaboration on Copper Process Technology for 2Xnm and Beyond (01/12/08)
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