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Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A / Volume 29 / Issue 5 / Plasma Science and Technology

J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 29, 051305 (2011); http://dx.doi.org/10.1116/1.3626534 (8 pages)

Mechanisms for sealing of porous low-k SiOCH by combined He and NH3 plasma treatment

Juline Shoeb1 and Mark J. Kushner2

1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011
2Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

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(Published online 22 August 2011)

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Porous dielectric materials, such as SiOCH, are used as the insulator in interconnect wiring in microelectronics devices to lower the dielectric constant and so decrease the RC time delay. Sealing of the pores (up to a few nm in diameter) is necessary to prevent degradation of the low-k properties during subsequent processing steps by diffusion of reactants through the pores into the material. Sequential treatment of porous SiOCH by He and NH3 plasmas is potentially a means of sealing pores while maintaining the low-k of the dielectric. The He plasma activates surface sites to accelerate the reactions responsible for pore sealing. NH3 plasma treatment completes the sealing through one of two mechanisms resulting from the adsorption of NHx radicals — catalyzing the formation of a densified surface layer or formation of Si-N, C-N and N-N bonds to bridge over the pore. In this paper, we discuss mechanisms for pore sealing bridging bonds based on results from an integrated computational investigation of the etching, cleaning, activation and sealing of porous SiOCH in sequential Ar/C4F8/O2, Ar/O2, He and Ar/NH3 plasmas. The authors found that pores in excess of 1 nm in radius are difficult to seal due to the inability of N-bonding to bridge the pore opening. Factors affecting the sealing efficiency, such as treatment time, average pore radius and aspect ratio are discussed.

© 2011 American Vacuum Society

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by the Semiconductor Research Corp. We acknowledge and sincerely thank A.M. Urbanowicz of IMEC, Belgium for useful discussions.

Article Outline

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. REACTION MECHANISMS
  3. SEALING EFFICIENCY
  4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

dielectric materials, diffusion, oxygen compounds, permittivity, porous materials, sealing materials, silicon compounds, sputter etching, surface cleaning

PACS

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History
Received 2 June 2011
Accepted 24 July 2011
Published online 22 August 2011
Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1116/1.3626534

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0734-2101 (print)  
1520-8559 (online)

Publisher

American Vacuum Society

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