Structural and Electrical Characterization of TiB2/TiSi2 Bilayer Barrier Structure

Abstract

AbstractThe TiB2/TiSi2 bilayer is considered as a diffusion barrier in metallization system with Cu. The TiSi2 sublayer serves as a contact and also as an additional diffusion barrier against boron, which outdiffuses from TiB2 at high temperature annealing. The attempts to form TiSi2 by vacuum annealing of TiB2/Ti film, which was obtained by co-sputtering from elemental targets are described. The composition and the structure of the films were analyzed by Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution cross-sectional TEM (HRXTEM). The Cu/TiB2/(Ti-Si)/n-Si contacts were investigated using current-voltage (I–V) on Schottky diode structures, which were prepared on n-type Si (100). The thermal stability of the TiB2/(Ti-Si) barrier was studied by structural and electrical analysis.It was observed that the lowest sheet resistance of 5.1 Ω/‪ was obtained after 850 °C annealing for 30 min, however the resulting Ti-Si layer is practically still amorphous and contains only a very small fraction of C54 TiSis in the form of microcrystallites. This layer also contained Ti5Si3 as indicated by XRD. The barrier height of Cu/TiB2/(Ti-Si)/n-Si Schottky diodes is ˜0.6 V and it does not show significant changes in the range 400–700 °C. Electrical monitoring is a very effective tool to detect deterioration of the barrier. No penetration is observed by AES at 700 °C, while the I–V curve shows changes in properties.