This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2011-127487, filed Jun. 7, 2011, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Embodiments described herein relate generally to a semiconductor device manufacturing method.
Recently, attention is paid to a 3-dimensional mounting technique used for forming interconnections by use of silicon substrate penetration electrodes in order to enhance the integration density of a semiconductor device. With this technique, after polishing the back surface side of a silicon substrate having elements formed on the front surface side thereof, via holes (through-silicon via [TSV]) that penetrate the substrate are formed by etching the substrate from the back surface side by reactive ion etching (RIE). In this case, in the condition used in RIE, gas having the high ratio of F is used as reactive gas to achieve a high etching rate. Then, after an insulating film is formed on the sidewall of the via hole by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), an interconnection metal is embedded and formed in the via hole. As formation of the interconnection metal, Cu is plated after forming a Cu seed layer by sputtering.
However, in this type of method, the following problem occurs. That is, since the silicon substrate is subjected to the polishing process, the thickness thereof varies. In order to absorb the variation, it is necessary to perform sufficient over-etching in the RIE process. Therefore, a notch is formed in the bottom portion of the via hole by excessive over-etching in the via hole arranged in a portion in which the thickness of the silicon substrate is small.
If a notch is present in the bottom portion of the via hole, the coverage of a CVD insulating film and a Cu seed layer in the notch portion becomes worse. If the coverage of the CVD insulating film becomes worse, it becomes impossible to achieve sufficient insulation. If the coverage of the Cu seed layer becomes worse, plating becomes insufficient and it may cause voids and film separation to occur.
As the mechanism of notch generation related to RIE of via hole processing, insufficient sidewall protection caused by reducing an amount of a reaction product of Si and halogen gas as represented by F and Br when etching reaches an insulating film that is an etching stop layer is considered. If sufficient sidewall protection is not attained in the bottom portion of the via hole, excessive over-etching occurs. Then, etching of the bottom portion of the via hole proceeds in a lateral direction because of the presence of a radical and, as a result, formation of a notch is considered.
In the RIE process, it is necessary for the via hole to penetrate the silicon substrate without fail. When the thickness variation of the substrate after polishing is considered, it is not practical to reduce an over-etching amount for safely acquiring a margin. Therefore, it is difficult to practically suppress formation of the notch in the bottom portion of the via hole.
In general, according to one embodiment, a semiconductor device manufacturing method comprises mounting a supporting substrate on a front surface side of a silicon substrate having an interconnection layer and function elements formed on a front surface side and having an etching stop layer formed below the interconnection layer, polishing a back surface side of the silicon substrate to reduce thickness of the silicon substrate, forming a mask having an opening for a via hole for formation of a penetration electrode that contacts a portion of the interconnection layer and an opening for a dummy hole having a diameter smaller than that of the above opening on the back surface side of the silicon substrate, etching portions exposed to the openings of the mask from the back surface side of the silicon substrate to form a via hole that reaches a part of the interconnection layer and form a dummy hole to an intermediate portion of the silicon substrate, forming an insulating film on a side surface of the via hole, and forming an interconnection material in the via hole having the insulating film formed therein.
Embodiments are explained below with reference to the drawings.
First, as shown in
In this case, 11 in the drawing indicates a shallow trench isolation (STI) region for element isolation, 12 a gate insulating film formed of a thermal oxide film or the like, 13 a gate electrode formed of poly-Si or the like, 14a, 14b, 14c inter-level insulating films formed of silicon oxide films or the like, 15a, 15b, 15c interconnection layers formed of Cu, Al or the like, 16 a protection insulating film such as TEOS, 17 an intermediate insulating film formed of SiN, 18 a flattening insulating film formed of polyimide or the like, 19 a surface bump and 80 a connection electrode.
The STI region 11 is formed of a CVD oxide film or the like. The gate electrodes 13 are formed above the substrate 10 with the gate insulating film 12 disposed therebetween. Further, source/drain regions (not shown) are formed in the surface portion of the substrate 10 on both sides of each gate electrode 13 to form a MOSFET.
The first interconnection layers 15a are formed on the first inter-level insulating film 14a and connected to the respective source/drain regions in the substrate 10. A portion of the interconnection layer 15a that is positioned in a region in which a via hole is formed functions as the connection electrode 80.
The second interconnection layers 15b are formed on the second inter-level insulating film 14b and connected to the respective first interconnection layers 15a. The third interconnection layers 15c are formed on the third inter-level insulating film 14c and connected to the respective second interconnection layers 15b. The insulating films 16, 17, 18 are formed on the third interconnection layers 15c and third inter-level insulating film 14c. Contact holes are formed in the insulating films 16, 17, 18 and the surface bump 19 formed of Cu or the like is formed to fill the contact holes.
Although not shown in the drawing, the interconnection layers 15a, 15b, 15c may be provided via barrier layers formed of TiN or the like. Further, a function element formed on the front surface side of the substrate 10 may be a solid-state imaging device such as a CMOS sensor or CCD sensor or a semiconductor memory. In the case of the solid-state imaging sensor, interconnection can be made from the back surface side of the substrate by use of the surface bump. In the case of the semiconductor memory, a plurality of memories can be stacked to increase the storage capacity by utilizing substrate penetration electrodes formed in via holes.
Thus, the function element formed on the substrate front surface side is not limited at all and various elements can be used. Further, the manufacturing process for the interconnection layers and function elements formed on the substrate front surface side is not limited at all.
Next, as shown in
Next, as shown in
As reactive gas used for RIE, a gaseous mixture of SF6, O2, HBr or the like may be used to attain a sufficiently high selective ratio of Si with respect to the silicon oxide films of the gate insulating film 12 and inter-level insulating film 14a.
Next, a problem related to RIE for formation of via holes is explained with reference to
In the case of an etching process using the above reactive gas, as shown in
If the etching process progresses and reaches the gate insulating film 12 or inter-level insulating film 14a formed of silicon oxide films as shown in
If such a notch 52 is formed, the coverage of a CVD oxide film 44 or Cu seed layer 46 used for sidewall protection as will be described later becomes worse and sufficiently high insulation cannot be realized or plating becomes insufficient. Further, no film is formed on a portion of the notch 52 and a so-called “void” may be formed.
On the other hand, in this embodiment, etching of
Si proceeds in the dummy hole portion during over-etching of the via hole portion. Therefore, SiF4, SiBr4 or the like that is a reactive product of halogen-series gas and Si and the oxide thereof are formed and the thus created substance is attached to the sidewall of the via hole portion. Therefore, even if etching is continuously performed even after the via hole 42 reaches the gate insulating film 12 or inter-level insulating film 14a, the sidewall of the via hole 42 can be protected from being influenced by radicals. As a result, formation of the notch 52 can be suppressed.
In Si etching, a so-called p-loading effect that the etching rate becomes lower as the hole diameter becomes smaller (the aspect ratio becomes larger) is provided. Since the opening diameter of the dummy hole 43 is formed smaller than that of original via hole 42, the etching rate thereof becomes low because of the μ-loading effect. As shown in
As a condition for preventing the dummy hole 43 from reaching the gate insulating film 12 and inter-level insulating film 14a at the time of over-etching of the via hole 42, for example, the following calculations may be made. As the via hole 42, a penetration hole in which the diameter φ is 10 μm and the depth is 40 μm is assumed as the via hole 42 and the over-etching ratio of the via hole 42 is 20%. In this case, when etching is made by 40+8=48 μm for formation of the via hole 42, the dummy hole 43 may be formed with the depth 40 μm (36 μm or less when a variation in the thickness of Si is included). The etching rate related to the dummy hole 43 at this time becomes 36/48=¾ or less.
Further, it is supposed that the amount of a product supplied from the dummy hole 43 is determined based on the volume to be etched. In this case, if the volume of approximately 1/10 of the volume to be etched for each unit time in the original via hole 42 is etched in the dummy hole 43, it can be said that a notch suppression effect can be provided. Therefore, even if a plurality of via holes 42 are provided, it is not necessary to form dummy holes 43 corresponding in number to the via holes 42 and it is sufficient to form one dummy hole 43 or via holes 43 smaller in number than the via holes 42.
Based on the above fact, if φ 10 μm is selected as a target dimension of the via hole 42, it is preferable to set φ 4 μm or less as the diameter of the dummy hole 43 as understood from
Next, as shown in
Next, as shown in
Next, as shown in
Next, as shown in
Thus, according to this embodiment, the notch 52 can be suppressed from being formed at the formation time of the via hole 42 by forming the dummy hole 43 that does not penetrate the substrate 10 together with the via hole 42 that penetrates the silicon substrate 10. As a result, the manufacturing yield can be enhanced. Further, since it is only required to form an opening for formation of the dummy hole in a mask used for formation of the via hole, the number of steps for formation of the dummy hole 43 is not increased.
This embodiment is different from the first embodiment explained before in that a B-ion injection layer is previously formed in a portion lying on the bottom portion of the via hole instead of forming the dummy hole.
The B-ion injection layer 61 is formed according to the steps of
First, as shown in
Next, as shown in
Subsequently, after the resist 71 is temporarily removed, a resist 73 having an opening is formed on a region in which a via hole is to be formed as shown in
Next, after the resist 73 is removed, a CVD oxide film 74 is deposited to fill the element isolation groove 72 with the oxide film 74 as shown in
The structure of
After this, as shown in
With the conventional method, a notch is formed at the over-etching time of the via hole 42. However, in this embodiment, formation of the notch can be suppressed because the ion injection layer 61 is formed. That is, since the ion injection layer 61 is formed on the bottom portion of the via hole 42, the etching rate becomes low when the etching reaches the ion injection layer 61. Since the etching rate becomes low in the via hole bottom portion, the of amount etching by radicals in the lateral direction becomes extremely small even if a sidewall protection film is not formed. Therefore, formation of the notch in the via hole bottom portion can be suppressed.
Next, as shown in
Then, as shown in
As described above, according to this embodiment, formation of notches at the formation time of the via holes 42 can be suppressed by previously forming the B-ion injection layer 61 on the bottom portion of the via hole portion formed from the substrate back surface side. Therefore, like the first embodiment, the manufacturing yield can be enhanced and the reliability can be enhanced.
Formation of notches can be further suppressed by forming dummy holes as in the first embodiment in addition to the feature of the second embodiment that the ion injection layer is formed.
(Modification)
This invention is not limited to the above embodiments. The function element formed on the silicon substrate is not limited to a solid-state imaging device or semiconductor memory and it may be a logic element. In this case, a logic system can be configured with a small area by integrally laminating silicon substrates having different function elements formed thereon. Further, this invention can be applied to a device that requires a via hole penetrating the substrate.
In the above embodiments, a case wherein a bulk substrate is used is explained, but the embodiments are not limited to this case and can be applied to a method for manufacturing a Micro-electromechanical System (MEMS) using an SOI substrate. When the MEMS is formed on the SOI substrate, a process for forming via holes in the base portion of the SOI substrate becomes necessary and notches may be formed at this time. Even in such a case, formation of notches can be suppressed by previously forming dummy holes or ion injection layers as explained in the above embodiments.
B is injected to form an ion injection layer in the second embodiment, but injected ions are not necessarily limited to B and any ions can be used if the etching rate of a portion having the ions injected therein becomes lower than that of Si that is not ion-injected. Specifically, a Group-III element such as In can be used in addition to B.
Gas used for etching the silicon substrate is not limited to a gaseous mixture of SF6, O2, HBr or the like and a condition in which, for example, NF3, Cl2 or the like and CF4, CHF3, HBr or the like for shape control as additive gas are mixed may be considered. Further, gas used when the etching stop layer is etched is not limited to CF4 and CHF3 and, for example, C4F8 and C4F6 can be used and a condition in which CH3F, He, Ar or the like as additive gas is mixed with the above gas can be considered.
While certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventions. Indeed, the novel embodiments described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the embodiments described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the inventions.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2011-127487 | Jun 2011 | JP | national |