Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Norbert Elbel*, Shumin Wang+,Annette Shger*, Dariusch Hadawi* and Chuck Held+
"Siemens AG, 81739 Munich, Germany, 'Cabot Corporation, Aurora, IL 60504
Abstract
Both metallic and abrasive particle cleaning after Cu CMP
process was studied. Two chemical, citric acid and K2-EDTA,
based cleaning systems were evaluated as functions of concentration and pH. Results of e 5 ' 10" at/cm2 for Cu contamination
were achieved with both optimized systems. Cu presented on
wafer surface in the form of homogeneous film, yet alumina was
detected in both localized particles as well as thin film. No Cu
corrosion nor surface roughening were detected after the cleaning
process.
Introduction
Copper has been accepted as the material of choice for subhalf micron interconnect technology. Due to the difficulties associated with RIE of copper, dual damascene and Cu CMP are most
commonly used to realize copper interconnects. One major challenge of copper wiring technology is to prevent copper from
diffusing into the active device regions (1). To meet this requirement, two conditions have to be fulfilled: (a) the copper lines
must be fully encapsulated by dense conductive and dielectric
barriers (2, 3), and (b) residual copper contamination, which is
usually present on the interlayer dielectric (ILD) surface after Cu
CMP, must be removed by an appropriate brush clean process (4).
In this paper, we demonstrate that the copper cleaning performance of a brush clean process can be enhanced by several
orders of magnitude by adding complexing agents to the cleaning
solution. The relationship between solution concentration, pH and
remaining copper contamination are experimentally studied by
total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) and vapour phase
decomposition (WD). Different surface analytical methods, such
as time-of-flight SIMS (TOF-SIMS), auger electron spectroscopy
(AES) and rutherford backscattering (RBS), are combined to
investigate, whether the residual metal contamination is mainly
present in form of particles or in form of a homogeneously distributed monolayer.
localized data points across the wafer were collected and averaged. This is to exclude the very edge of the wafer, where high Cu
residues were usually found (due to polishing process).
Experimental
All cleaning experiments were performed utilizing unpattemed 6" wafers. Prior to brush cleaning, the wafers were contaminated with copper by one of the following procedures:
(A) Blanket oxide wafers were polished for 30 sec inbetween
blanket copper wafers.
(B) Blanket copper wafers were polished just to clear.
All the polishing was carried out with Cabot Cu slurry. The contaminated wafers were brush cleaned with OnTrak double side
scrubber using different cleaning solutions. Metallic contamination of the wafers from process (A) was analyzed utilizing VPDAAS, which integrates the entire wafer surface. Wafers contaminated with process (B) were characterized by TXRF, of which 9
IITC 99-80
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Fig. 5: Comparison of pure DI water, EDTA and citric acid with respect
to Cu cleaning performance. The wafers were contaminated by procedure
(B) and analyzed by %point TXRF measurements.
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EDTA
Citric acid
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Fig. 8: AFM image and line profile analysis of alumina particles, which
are partially embedded into the oxide surface.The dashed line in the AFM
image indicates the line profile trace.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have shown that brush cleaning with
EDTA as well as with CA is effective in removing Cu contamination from the ILD surface. At solution concentrations of 1% the
Cu contamination level is reduced to values below 5 ' 10" at/cmz.
As revealed by AFM measurements, the investigated cleaning
solutions are not corrosive to the Cu damascene structures.
If alumina particles are partially embedded into the oxide
surface, they will be difficult to be removed by conventional
brush cleaning. HF brush cleaning and optimized CMP
consumables and the process as well as a CMP buffing step are
feasable strategies to reduce the overall surface defectivity.
.L
Acknowledgements
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Fig. 7: AI contamination after EDTA cleaning at 0.1% solution concentration and at pHs from 6.0 to 11.5. The pH was adjusted by KOH. Contamination procedure (A) and VPD-AAS have been used.
References
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