Chemical Vapor Deposition of TiN for Sub-0.5 μm ULSI Circuits

Abstract

Titanium nitride (TiN) has been recognized as an excellent barrier material in various metallization structures of advanced microelectronic devices. TiN serves as a nucleation/glue layer as well as a barrier against WF6 attack in W plug filling. It serves as a diffusion barrier during or after high-temperature Al reflow processing for contact and via filling. TiN is considered as a diffusion-barrier material for Cu metallization as well. In addition, it is utilized as an antireflection coating layer, especially on top of Al, an application that will not be discussed in this article.TiN films must conform to the extreme topographies used in devices in order to guarantee void-free plug formation as well as Jow junction leakage. This should be achieved with the thinnest films possible in order to reduce interconnect stack thickness and to lower contact or via resistance. (The TiN resistivity is higher than that of the other components of the metallization—Ti, Al, or W.) In addition, the good barrier properties must be retained following various thermal cycles used in multilevel metallization. Finally, the metallization must be manufacturing-worthy, namely, it should be reliable and reproducible, it should have a very low particle content, and it should have a low cost of ownership.At present, TiN is mainly deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) via reactive sputtering. However, the poor conformality of sputtered TiN films over extreme topography limits the use of this deposition technique for deep sub-0.5 μm applications, especially those with features that have high aspect ratios.