Abstract
The evolution of copper microstructure and incorporated impurities was studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS), and electrical resistance measurements for narrow (~28–40 nm) and wide Damascene features. Resistance measurements suggest an increasing degree of post-CMP microstructure evolution with anneal as linewidth falls below 100 nm for both “doped” and “pure” electrodeposited Cu. SIMS shows increased levels of incorporated sulfur and chlorine in narrow Cu lines whose concentration distributions appear unaffected by annealing at 350 °C, in contrast to redistribution observed in wider lines. Wide lines exhibit significant grain growth with a high temperature anneal, while little to no grain growth is evident upon anneal in narrow line longitudinal TEM sections. This post-anneal resistance drop and concomitant lack of recrystallization and grain growth in the narrow Cu lines is consistent with a microstructure recovery process, where defects in the Cu lattice are eliminated without appreciable formation and growth of new grains.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Edelstein D, Heidenreich J, Goldblatt R, Cote W, Uzoh C, Lustig N, Roper P, McDevitt T, Motsiff W, Simon A, Dukovic J, Wachnik J, Rathore H, Schulz R, Su L, Luce S, Slattery J (1997) Full copper wiring in a sub-0.25 mm cmos ulsi technology. In: Technical digest, IEEE international electron devices meeting, pp 773–776
Andricacos PC, Uzoh C, Duckovic JO, Horkans J, Deligianni H (1998) Damascene copper electroplating for chip interconnections. IBM J Res Dev 42(5):567
West AC, Mayer S, Reid J (2001) A superfilling model that predicts bump formation. Electrochem Solid State lett 4(7):C50
Moffat TP, Wheeler D, Huber WH, Josell D (2001) Superconformal electrodeposition of copper. Electrochem Solid State Lett 4(4):C26
Vivian Feng Z, Li X, Gewirth AA (2003) Inhibition due to the interaction of polyethylene glycol, chloride, and copper in plating baths: a surface-enhanced Raman study. J Phys Chem B 107:9415
Akolkar R, Landau U (2004) A time-dependent transport-kinetics model for additive interactions in copper interconnect metallization. J Electrochem Soc 151(11):C702
Vereecken PM, Binstead RA, Deligianni H, Andricacos PC (2005) The chemistry of additives in damascene copper plating. IBM J Res Dev 49(1):3
Moffat TP, Wheeler D, Edelstein MD, Josell D (2005) Superconformal film growth: mechanism and quantification. IBM J Res Dev 49(1):19
Harper JME, Cabral C Jr, Andricacos PC, Gignac L, Noyan IC, Rodbell KP, Hu CK (1999) Mechanisms for microstructure evolution in electroplated copper thin films near room temperature. J Appl Phys 86(5):2516
Ueno K, Ritzdorf T, Grace S (1999) Seed layer dependence of room-temperature recrystallization in electroplated copper films. J Appl Phys 86(9):4930
Hau-Riege SP, Thompson CV (2000) In situ transmission electron microscope studies of abnormal grain growth in electroplated copper films. Appl Phys Lett 76(3):309
Field DP, Dornisch D, Tong HH (2001) Investigating the microstructure-reliability relationship in cu damascene lines. Scripta Mater 45:1069
Yoon MS, Park YJ, Joo YC (2002) Impurity redistributions in electroplated Cu films during self-annealing. Thin Solid Films 408:230–235
Brongersma SH, Kerr E, Vervoort I, Saerens A, Maex K (2002) Grain growth, stress, and impurities in electroplated Cu. J Mater Res 17(3):582
Lee H, Wong SS, Dopatin SD (2003) Correlation of stress and texture evolution during self- and thermal annealing of electroplated Cu films. J Appl Phys 93(7):3796
Wu W, Ernur D, Brongersma SH, Van Hove M, Maex K (2004) Grain growth in copper interconnect lines. Microelectron Eng 76:190
Liu C-W, Wang Y-L, Tsai M-S, Feng H-P, Chang S-C, Hwang G-J (2005) Effect of plating current density and annealing on impurities in electroplated Cu film. J Vac Sci Technol A 23(4):658
Stangl M, Acker J, Dittel V, Gruner W, Hoffmann V, Wetzig K (2005) Characterization of electroplated copper self-annealing with investigations focused on incorporated impurities. Microelectron Eng 82:189
Zhang W, Brongersma SH, Heylen N, Beyer G, Vandervorst W, Maex K (2005) Geometry effect on impurity incorporation and grain growth in narrow copper lines. J Electrochem Soc 152(12):C832
Zhang W, Brogersma SH, Conard T, Wu W, Van Hove M, Vandervorst W, Maex K (2005) Impurity incorporation during copper electrodeposition in the curvature-enhanced accelerator coverage regime. Electrochem Solid-State Lett 8(7):C95
Stangl M, Acker J, Oswald S, Uhlemann M, Gemming T, Baunack S, Wetzig K (2007) Incorporation of sulfur, chlorine, and carbon into electroplated Cu thin films. Microelectron Eng 84:54
Steinlesberger G, Engelhardt M, Schindler G, Steinhoegl W, Von Glasow A, Mosig K, Bertagnolli E (2002) Electrical assessment of copper damascene interconnects down to sub-50 nm feature sizes. Microelectron Eng 64:409
Steinhoegl W, Schindler G, Steinlesberger G, Engelhardt M (2002) Size-dependent resistivity of metallic wires in the mesoscopic range. Phys Rev B 66:075414
Schindler G, Steinlesberger G, Engelhardt M, Steinhoegl W (2003) Electrical characterization of copper interconnects with end-of-roadmap feature sizes. Solid-State Electron 47:1233
Zhang W, Brongersma SH, Li Z, Li D, Richard O, Maex K (2007) Analysis of the size effect in electroplated fine wires and a realistic assessment to model copper resistivity. J Appl Phys 101:063703
Graham RL, Alers GB, Mountsier T, Shamma N, Dhuey S, Cabrini S, Geiss RH, Read DT, Peddeti S (2010) Resistivity dominated by surface scattering in sub-50 nm cu wires. Appl Phys Lett 96:042116
Josell D, Brongersma SH, Tokei Z (2009) Size-dependent resistivity in nanoscale interconnects. Annu Rev Mater Res 39:231
Li B, Sullivan TD, Lee TC, Badami D (2004) Reliability challenges for copper interconnects. Microelectron Reliab 44:365
Hu CK, Gignac L, Baker B et al (2007) Impact of Cu microstructure on electromigration reliability. In: International interconnect technology conference, p 93
Nogami T et al (2010) High reliability 32 nm Cu/ULK BEOL based on PVD CuMn seed and its extendibility. In: IEDM, pp 33.5.1–33.5.4
Maekawa K, Mori K, Suzumura N, Honda K, Hirose Y, Asai K, Uedono A, Kojima M (2008) Impact of Al in Cu alloy interconnects on electro and stress migration reliabilities. Microelectron Eng 85(10):2137
Yokogawa S, Kikuta K, Tsuchiya H, Takewaki T, Suzuki M, Toyoshima H, Kakuhara Y, Kawahara N, Usami T, Ohto K, Fujii K, Tsuchiya Y, Arita K, Motoyama K, Tohara M, Taijii T, Kurokawa T, Sekine M (2008) Tradeoff characteristics between resistivity and reliability for scaled-down cu-based interconnects. IEEE Trans Electron Devices 55(1):350
Kelly J, Nogami T, van der Straten O, Demarest J, Li J, Penny C, Vo T, Parks C, DeHaven P, Hu CK, Liniger E (2012) Electrolyte additive chemistry and feature size-dependent impurity incorporation for Cu interconnects. J Electrochem Soc 159(10):D563
Moffat TP, Wheeler D, Josell D (2004) Electrodeposition of copper in the SPS -PEG-Cl additive system. I. Kinetic measurements: influence of SPS. J Electrochem Soc 151:C262
Hayase M, Taketani M, Aizawa K, Hatsuzawa T, Hayabusa K (2002) Copper bottom-up deposition by breakdown of PEG-Cl inhibition. Electrochem Solid-State Lett 5(10):C98
Hebert KR (2005) Role of chloride ions in suppression of copper electrodeposition by polyethylene glycol. J Electrochem Soc 152(5):C283
Hirsch PB (1997) Electron microscopy of thin crystals. R. E. Krieger Pub Co, USA
Fukai Y, Mizutani M, Yokota S, Kanazawa M, Miura Y, Watanabe T (2003) Superabundant vacancy-hydrogen clusters in electrodeposited Ni and Cu. J Alloy Compd 356–357:270
Uedono A, Suzuki T, Nakamura T (2004) Vacancy-type defects in electroplated Cu films probed by using a monoenergetic positron beam. J Appl Phys 95:913
Kitaoka Y, Tono T, Yoshimoto S, Hirahara T, Hasegawa S, Ohba T (2009) Direct detection of grain boundary scattering in damascene Cu wires by nanoscale four-point probe resistance measurements. Appl Phys Lett 95:052110
Kim TH, Zhang XG, Nicholson DM, Evans BM, Kulkarni NS, Radhakrishnan B, Kenik EA, Li A-P (2010) Large discrete resistance jump at grain boundary in copper nanowire. Nanoletters 10(8):3096
Reed-Hill RE, Abbaschian R (1994) Physical metallurgy principles, 3rd edn. PWS Publishing Company, USA
Humphreys FJ, Hatherly M (2004) Recrystallization and related annealing phenomena. Elsevier Ltd, The Netherlands
Cullity BD (1978) Elements of X-ray diffraction, 2nd edn. Addison Wesley Publishing Co, USA
Acknowledgments
This work was performed by the Research Alliance Teams at various IBM Research and Development Facilities. We are grateful to Dan Edelstein of IBM for critically reviewing the original manuscript. We also acknowledge useful discussions with Dr. Dan Josell of NIST.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kelly, J., Parks, C., Demarest, J., Li, J., Penny, C. (2014). Microstructure Evolution of Copper in Nanoscale Interconnect Features. In: Kondo, K., Akolkar, R., Barkey, D., Yokoi, M. (eds) Copper Electrodeposition for Nanofabrication of Electronics Devices. Nanostructure Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9176-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9176-7_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-9175-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9176-7
eBook Packages: Chemistry and Materials ScienceChemistry and Material Science (R0)