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Stress Characterization of Post-CMP Copper Films Planarized Using Novel Low-Shear and Surface-Engineered Pads

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Manish Deopura*
Affiliation:
1Neopad Technologies Corporation, Sunnyvale, California, USA94085 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA02139
Edward Hwang
Affiliation:
1Neopad Technologies Corporation, Sunnyvale, California, USA94085
Sudhanshu Misra
Affiliation:
1Neopad Technologies Corporation, Sunnyvale, California, USA94085
Pradip K. Roy
Affiliation:
1Neopad Technologies Corporation, Sunnyvale, California, USA94085
*
*To whom all correspondence should be addressed (email: [email protected])
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Abstract

A family of novel low-shear and surface-engineered pads for copper chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) are designed and evaluated for polishing characteristics and process induced stress. Tribological studies are carried out on blanket copper films using these low-shear/surface-engineered pads and comparison is made with state of the art commercial pads (IC1000 and JSR). Results indicate that low-shear surface-engineered pads exhibit vastly improved tribological performance. These pads exhibit a 40% lower coefficient of friction (COF) over a larger range of Sommerfeld numbers (So) compared to commercial pads. A simplified XRD line profiling technique has been utilized to characterize stress within post-CMP copper films. The (222) Bragg peak position obtained from the XRD spectra of films polished using low-shear surface-engineered pads indicates virtually no shift compared to the peak position for the unpolished copper films. This result establishes that almost no stress is incorporated during bulk Copper removal using the newly designed pads.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2005

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