Metal drift induced electrical instability of porous low dielectric constant film

Abstract

Nano-porous carbon doped oxide (CDO) is one of the potential low dielectric constant (low-k) materials that can achieve a dielectric constant as low as 2.2 and is expected to be suitable for the next generation multilevel interconnection. However, the electrical stability of CDO in contact with metal has not been addressed. In this work, metal ions' drift into nano-porous CDO is investigated. It is observed that both the Al and Cu ions can be driven into porous CDO film easily by applying electric field or thermal treatment. This results in a severe flat band voltage shift of the metal/CDO/Si capacitor structure. It is hypothesized that the lacking formation of self-limited aluminum oxide between Al and CDO film make Al ions drift into CDO. The adhesion of Al and Cu to CDO is also very poor. A physical model, combining weak dielectric polarization and metal ions drift, was proposed to explain the observed electrical instability. The inconsistent results regarding the Al/porous low-k/Si structure reported in the previous literatures can also be explained with this proposed model. Fortunately, TaN, as a common diffusion barrier material for Cu interconnect structure, is proved to have good adhesion to CDO. Negligible metal ions would drift in CDO during electrical stress. It is concluded that with a suitable diffusion barrier, such as TaN, CDO is still a very promising material for next generation Cu-interconnect technology. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.