Reduction of the shear stress in copper via's in organic interlayer dielectric material

• Main Authors: STETTER MICHAEL, KALTALIOGLU ERDEM, HOINKIS MARK, COWLEY ANDY
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 13.06.2006
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

Interconnect layers on a semiconductor body containing logic circuits (microprocessors, Asics or others) or random access memory cells (DRAMS) are formed in a manner to significantly reduce the number of shorts between adjacent conductor/vias with narrow separations in technologies having feature sizes of 0.18 microns or smaller. This is accomplished by etching to form recessed copper top surfaces on each layer after a chemical-mechanical polishing process has been completed. The thickness of an applied barrier layer, on the recessed copper surfaces, is controlled to become essentially co-planar with the surrounding insulator surfaces. A thicker barrier layer eliminates the need for a capping layer. The elimination of a capping layer results in a reduction in the overall capacitive coupling, stress, and cost.