The invention relates to semiconductor structures and, more particularly, to chamferless via structures and methods of manufacture.
Integrated circuits (ICs) typically include a plurality of semiconductor devices and interconnect wiring. Networks of metal interconnect wiring typically connect the semiconductor devices from a semiconductor portion of a semiconductor substrate. Multiple levels of metal interconnect wiring above the semiconductor portion of the semiconductor substrate are connected together to form a back-end-of-the line (BEOL) interconnect structure.
Several developments have contributed to increased performance of contemporary ICs. One such development is technology scaling which results in higher integration of structures, e.g., transistors, wiring, etc. However, technology scaling has posed several challenges including, e.g., process variation, stricter design rules, etc. For example, in trench first via last metal hard mask integration schemes, excessive non-self-aligned via (Non-SAV) chamfering can result during trench formation. This integration scheme results in chamfering which is very difficult to control, and can result in poor yields, jagged surfaces and shorting issues.
In one embodiment, a method for fabricating chamferless vias is disclosed. The method comprises receiving a substrate stack comprising a dielectric layer and a plurality of trenches formed therein. The plurality of trenches are filled with a conductive material to form a set of wiring vias with a first height (M1+V1). Next, a block mask is used over a capping material layer to expose a portion of the conductive material in contact with a subset of the set of wiring vias to etch to a second height (M1). The capping material layer and the conductive material are etched and a set of wiring vias are defined by the block mask, thereby forming a subset of wiring vias of the second height (M1) in response to the etching and a subset of wiring vias of the first height (M1+V1) underneath the block mask. The dielectric layer may be an ultra-low-k material. The conductive material a set of metallic element such as Copper, Aluminum, Tungsten, Hf, Ru, Ti, and Ta.
In another embodiment, a structure is disclosed. The structure comprises a conductive line and a set of chamferless wiring vias formed in a dielectric material with at least one of the set of chamferless wiring vias in contact with the conductive line. The set of chamferless wiring vias is formed with at least a first subset of wiring vias of a first height and a second subset of wiring vias of a second height. A barrier is formed over the second subset of wiring vias of the second height.
In a further embodiment, an integrated circuit is disclosed. The integrated circuit comprises one or more semiconductor structures. At least one of the one or more semiconductor structures comprises a conductive line and a set of chamferless wiring vias formed in a dielectric material with at least one of the set of chamferless wiring vias in contact with the conductive line. The set of chamferless wiring vias is formed with at least a first subset of wiring vias of a first height and a second subset of wiring vias of a second height. A barrier is formed over the second subset of wiring vias of the second height.
The accompanying figures where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views, and which together with the detailed description below are incorporated in and form part of the specification, serve to further illustrate various embodiments and to explain various principles and advantages all in accordance with the present invention, in which:
It is to be understood that the present disclosure will be described in terms of a given illustrative architecture; however, other architectures, structures, substrate materials, process features, and steps may be varied within the scope of the present disclosure.
It will also be understood that when an element such as a layer, region or substrate is referred to as being “on” or “over” another element, it can be directly on the other element or intervening elements may also be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly on” or “directly over” another element, there are no intervening elements present. It will also be understood that when an element is referred to as being “connected” or “coupled” to another element, it can be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly connected” or “directly coupled” to another element, there are no intervening elements present.
The present disclosure may include a design for an integrated circuit chip that may be created in a graphical computer programming language and stored in a computer storage medium (such as a disk, tape, physical hard drive, or virtual hard drive such as in a storage access network). If the designer does not fabricate chips or the photolithographic masks used to fabricate chips, the designer may transmit the resulting design by physical means (e.g., by providing a copy of the storage medium storing the design) or electronically (e.g., through the Internet) to such entities, directly or indirectly. The stored design is then converted into the appropriate format (e.g., GDSII) for the fabrication of photolithographic masks, which typically include multiple copies of the chip design in question that are to be formed on a wafer. The photolithographic masks are utilized to define areas of the wafer (and/or the layers thereon) to be etched or otherwise processed.
Methods as described herein may be used in the fabrication of integrated circuit chips. The resulting integrated circuit chips can be distributed by the fabricator in raw wafer form (that is, as a single wafer that has multiple unpackaged chips), as a bare die, or in a packaged form. In the latter case the chip is mounted in a single chip package (such as a plastic carrier, with leads that are affixed to a motherboard or other higher-level carrier) or in a multichip package (such as a ceramic carrier that has either or both surface interconnections or buried interconnections). In any case the chip is then integrated with other chips, discrete circuit elements, and/or other signal processing devices as part of either (a) an intermediate product, such as a motherboard, or (b) an end product. The end product can be any product that includes integrated circuit chips, ranging from toys and other low-end applications to advanced computer products having a display, a keyboard or other input device, and a central processor.
Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” of the present principles, as well as other variations thereof, means that a particular feature, structure, characteristic, and so forth described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present principles. Thus, the appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” or “in an embodiment”, as well any other variations, appearing in various places throughout the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.
The invention relates to semiconductor structures and, more particularly, to chamferless via structures and methods of manufacture during back end of the line (BEOL) processing. Advantageously, the processes described herein will result in final wiring structures.
The chamferless via structures of the present invention may be manufactured in a number of ways using a number of different tools. In general, though, the methodologies and tools are used to form structures with dimensions in the micrometer and nanometer scale. The methodologies, i.e., technologies, employed to manufacture the chamferless via structures of the present invention have been adopted from integrated circuit (IC) technology. For example, the structures of the present invention are built on wafers and are realized in films of material patterned by photolithographic processes on the top of a wafer. In particular, the fabrication of the chamferless via structures of the present invention uses three basic building blocks: (i) deposition of thin films of material on a substrate, (ii) applying a patterned mask on top of the films by photolithographic imaging, and (iii) etching the films selectively to the mask.
There are several overall aspects to the present invention. The first aspect is that there is a tall trench formation. The tall trench is the M1 height plus the V1 height. M1 is lower portion of a wiring via and the V2 an upper portion of the wiring via. A portion of the via defined by length V2 is sticking out after the M1 recess. The second aspect is the lithography for the via is a block mask using a save and cut approach. The portion of the via M2 is a trench type only. The third aspect is that the present invention does not require a self-aligned via (SAV) or full aligned via (FAV). The fourth aspect is that the via mask is a block and this may be easier to manufacture since it covers only the oxide area. The fifth aspect is that the present invention uses a self-formation barrier.
Now referring to the figures, shown in
The dielectric layer 312 may be formed to a thickness of about 50 to 500 nm; although other dimensions are also contemplated by embodiments of the present invention. The dielectric layer 312 may be with low-K (UK) or ultra-low k (ULK) dielectric layer. The plurality of trenches are filled with a conductive material to form a set of wiring vias 304 with a first height (M1+V1).
In one or more embodiments, the openings e.g. 322 are formed by conventional lithography and etching processes. For example, a resist may be formed over the hard mask (not shown), which is exposed to energy (light) to form a pattern (openings). A reactive ion etching (RIE) process may then be performed through the openings of the resist to form the openings in the hard mask. The resist may then removed using conventional stripants or oxygen ashing processes.
The OPL block mask 324 saves the via 304 in opening 322 but removes everything else through an etching step. As shown in
The method(s) as described above is used in the fabrication of integrated circuit chips. The resulting integrated circuit chips can be distributed by the fabricator in raw wafer form (that is, as a single wafer that has multiple unpackaged chips), as a bare die, or in a packaged form. In the latter case the chip is mounted in a single chip package (such as a plastic carrier, with leads that are affixed to a motherboard or other higher level carrier) or in a multichip package (such as a ceramic carrier that has either or both surface interconnections or buried interconnections). In any case the chip is then integrated with other chips, discrete circuit elements, and/or other signal processing devices as part of either (a) an intermediate product, such as a motherboard, or (b) an end product. The end product can be any product that includes integrated circuit chips, ranging from toys and other low-end applications to advanced computer products having a display, a keyboard or other input device, and a central processor.
Although specific embodiments have been disclosed, those having ordinary skill in the art will understand that changes can be made to the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. The scope of the disclosure is not to be restricted, therefore, to the specific embodiments, and it is intended that the appended claims cover any and all such applications, modifications, and embodiments within the scope of the present disclosure.
It should be noted that some features of the present disclosure may be used in one embodiment thereof without use of other features of the present disclosure. As such, the foregoing description should be considered as merely illustrative of the principles, teachings, examples, and exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, and not a limitation thereof.
Also note that these embodiments are only examples of the many advantageous uses of the innovative teachings herein. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed disclosures. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
5512512 | Lee | Apr 1996 | A |
5512514 | Lee | Apr 1996 | A |
5691238 | Avanzino et al. | Nov 1997 | A |
5693568 | Liu et al. | Dec 1997 | A |
5773365 | Ito | Jun 1998 | A |
5798559 | Bothra | Aug 1998 | A |
5960254 | Cronin | Sep 1999 | A |
5970376 | Chen | Oct 1999 | A |
6143640 | Cronin et al. | Nov 2000 | A |
6352917 | Gupta et al. | Mar 2002 | B1 |
6426558 | Chapple-Sokol | Jul 2002 | B1 |
6495917 | Ellis-Monaghan | Dec 2002 | B1 |
6566242 | Adams | May 2003 | B1 |
6633074 | Ahn | Oct 2003 | B2 |
6815329 | Babich | Nov 2004 | B2 |
7064439 | Berthold | Jun 2006 | B1 |
7067902 | Hichri et al. | Jun 2006 | B2 |
7196423 | Wu et al. | Mar 2007 | B2 |
7608538 | Deligianni | Oct 2009 | B2 |
8008788 | Koketsu | Aug 2011 | B2 |
8114769 | Srivastava | Feb 2012 | B1 |
8299625 | Ponoth et al. | Oct 2012 | B2 |
8461046 | Vannier | Jun 2013 | B2 |
8633520 | Yu | Jan 2014 | B2 |
8835305 | Yang | Sep 2014 | B2 |
8921150 | Lu et al. | Dec 2014 | B2 |
9123790 | Pillarisetty | Sep 2015 | B2 |
9171801 | Bao | Oct 2015 | B2 |
9236292 | Romero et al. | Jan 2016 | B2 |
9379027 | Kim | Jun 2016 | B2 |
9401323 | Farooq et al. | Jul 2016 | B1 |
9490168 | Chen et al. | Nov 2016 | B1 |
9536830 | Bao | Jan 2017 | B2 |
9548243 | Briggs et al. | Jan 2017 | B1 |
9576894 | Singh | Feb 2017 | B2 |
9607893 | Zhang | Mar 2017 | B1 |
9613862 | Lenhardt | Apr 2017 | B2 |
9653399 | Zhu | May 2017 | B2 |
9673095 | Farooq et al. | Jun 2017 | B2 |
9685366 | Briggs | Jun 2017 | B1 |
9793246 | Tseng | Oct 2017 | B1 |
9806027 | Kim | Oct 2017 | B2 |
9917137 | Briggs et al. | Mar 2018 | B1 |
10177156 | He | Jan 2019 | B2 |
10269699 | Ma | Apr 2019 | B2 |
10290632 | Scott | May 2019 | B2 |
10325807 | Samra | Jun 2019 | B2 |
10347528 | Singh | Jul 2019 | B1 |
10763304 | Hsu | Sep 2020 | B2 |
20040124457 | Kubo | Jul 2004 | A1 |
20040192037 | Barns | Sep 2004 | A1 |
20050067633 | Mushika | Mar 2005 | A1 |
20050239273 | Yang | Oct 2005 | A1 |
20060097397 | Russell | May 2006 | A1 |
20060197228 | Daubenspeck | Sep 2006 | A1 |
20070164434 | Watanabe | Jul 2007 | A1 |
20080026563 | Kanamura | Jan 2008 | A1 |
20080073748 | Bielefeld | Mar 2008 | A1 |
20080136029 | Liu | Jun 2008 | A1 |
20080237789 | He et al. | Oct 2008 | A1 |
20090045388 | Clevenger | Feb 2009 | A1 |
20090057905 | Keum | Mar 2009 | A1 |
20090068836 | Kim | Mar 2009 | A1 |
20100052018 | Cohen et al. | Mar 2010 | A1 |
20100081275 | Ishizaka | Apr 2010 | A1 |
20100130001 | Noguchi | May 2010 | A1 |
20100181673 | Hayashi | Jul 2010 | A1 |
20100197135 | Ishizaka | Aug 2010 | A1 |
20100264538 | Swinnen et al. | Oct 2010 | A1 |
20110121375 | Kawahara | May 2011 | A1 |
20110189438 | Furusho | Aug 2011 | A1 |
20110223734 | Davis | Sep 2011 | A1 |
20110223759 | Wang | Sep 2011 | A1 |
20120104622 | Kim | May 2012 | A1 |
20120168957 | Srivastava | Jul 2012 | A1 |
20120248609 | Tomita | Oct 2012 | A1 |
20130026606 | Farooq et al. | Jan 2013 | A1 |
20130127055 | Chen | May 2013 | A1 |
20130187273 | Zhang | Jul 2013 | A1 |
20130207270 | Holmes et al. | Aug 2013 | A1 |
20130244422 | Zhang | Sep 2013 | A1 |
20130328208 | Holmes et al. | Dec 2013 | A1 |
20140027822 | Su | Jan 2014 | A1 |
20140232013 | Wu | Aug 2014 | A1 |
20140239363 | Pan | Aug 2014 | A1 |
20140239503 | Huisinga | Aug 2014 | A1 |
20140252538 | Bao | Sep 2014 | A1 |
20140252618 | Peng | Sep 2014 | A1 |
20150076695 | Cheng | Mar 2015 | A1 |
20150145055 | Kim | May 2015 | A1 |
20150171010 | Bristol et al. | Jun 2015 | A1 |
20150214101 | Ren | Jul 2015 | A1 |
20150262873 | Chu | Sep 2015 | A1 |
20150279733 | Ferrer | Oct 2015 | A1 |
20150311113 | Zhang | Oct 2015 | A1 |
20150340326 | Lytle | Nov 2015 | A1 |
20150371907 | Lu | Dec 2015 | A1 |
20150380296 | Antonelli | Dec 2015 | A1 |
20160125833 | Kim | May 2016 | A1 |
20160163587 | Backes et al. | Jun 2016 | A1 |
20160190006 | Chen | Jun 2016 | A1 |
20170062275 | Lenhardt | Mar 2017 | A1 |
20170092536 | Yang | Mar 2017 | A1 |
20170178949 | Nguyen | Jun 2017 | A1 |
20170213786 | Ahn | Jul 2017 | A1 |
20170213790 | Wang | Jul 2017 | A1 |
20170213792 | Nag | Jul 2017 | A1 |
20170229395 | Kim | Aug 2017 | A1 |
20170256449 | Zhang | Sep 2017 | A1 |
20170278786 | Inoue | Sep 2017 | A1 |
20170301624 | Briggs | Oct 2017 | A1 |
20180033685 | Chen | Feb 2018 | A1 |
20180040510 | Briggs | Feb 2018 | A1 |
20180040813 | Han | Feb 2018 | A1 |
20180061700 | Sun et al. | Mar 2018 | A1 |
20180102257 | Nagabhirava | Apr 2018 | A1 |
20180350665 | Chae | Dec 2018 | A1 |
20190067089 | Yang | Feb 2019 | A1 |
20190363008 | Gstrein | Nov 2019 | A1 |
20200006126 | Liou | Jan 2020 | A1 |
20200020634 | Tsai | Jan 2020 | A1 |
20200091241 | Sumino | Mar 2020 | A1 |
20200259083 | He | Aug 2020 | A1 |
20200365506 | Gardner | Nov 2020 | A1 |
Entry |
---|
Briggs et al., “Structure and Method for Fully Aligned Vias Utilizing Selective Metal Deposition” Aug. 11, 2016. |
Mignot et al., “Single Damascene Copper interconnect for via formation using TiN HMO” Jun. 27, 2017. |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20200161180 A1 | May 2020 | US |