Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 38, No. 3, March 2001, pp.

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Film Properties of Copper Grown by the Electroplating Process

Byung-Nam Park , Seong-Chan Bae, Seung-Hyun Son, Jong-Hyun Lee and Sie-Young Choi
School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Taegu 702-701

Chang-Gil Suk and Jin-Kwang Choi

Ultech Co.,Ltd. Taegu 704-240 (Received 12 April 2000) We investigated the characteristics of copper lms prepared using the electroplating method. The electroplating process was performed for 3 min with the current density ranging from 2.4 up to 3.2 A/dm2 and the electrode distance ranging from 1 up to 4 cm. Plated copper lms were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy, a 4-point probe, an -step proler, and Auger electron spectroscopy. The deposition rate of the lms was up to 500 nm/min, and the surface roughness of the lms increased with increasing lm roughness and thickness. The resistivity of the lms was below 2.4 cm, and pure copper lms were plated under all conditions.

I. INTRODUCTION The advantages of copper lm, compared with aluminium, for chip wiring, which include lower resistance, higher allowed current density, and increased scalability, have long been recognized [13]. The copper has been deposited using a variety of techniques - physical vapor deposition (PVD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), etc. These techniques, however, suer from some problems in depositing copper. PVD methods, such as thermal evaporation, e-beam evaporation, and sputtering, have diculty in lling ne pitch trench holes due to the shadow eect [4,5]. Because of high cost, great lm stress, and low deposition speed, the CVD method has no application to the manufacturing process [6,7]. Recently, electroplating method which deposits copper lms by using cupric sulfate solution, has been proposed. the electroplating method has the advantages of simplicity, safety, low cost, low deposition temperature, high purity, low resistivity, and high capability of gap lling [8]. In this method, an electrical contact is made to the seed layer and current is passed such that the reaction [Cu2+ + 2e Cu(0)] occurs at the wafer surface(cathode). At the anode an oxidation reaction occurs which balances the current ow at the cathode, thus maintaining electrical neutrality in the cupric sulfate so

lution.

II. EXPERIMENTAL The seed layer used in this experiment was a copper thin lm deposited using the metal organic CVD process on an unpatterned p-type (111) silicon wafer. The thickness of seed layer was 1000 A and it had a polycrystalline texture. A wetting process was performed to remove the oxidized copper layer on the seed layer before the electroplating process. Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the electroplating equipment. The electroplating process was performed for 3 min with a current density ranging from 2.4 up to 3.2 A/dm2 and a electrode distance rang-

E-mail: prince@palgong.knu.ac.kr E-mail: sychoi@ee.knu.ac.kr E-mail: cgsuk@ultech.co.kr E-mail: jkchoi@ultech.co.kr -232-

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the equipment.

Film Properties of Copper Grown by the Electroplating Process Byung-Nam Park et al.

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Fig. 2. Film thickness vs. current density.

ing from 1 up to 4 cm. The copper plating was processed at room temperature in the atmosphere. The thickness and the sheet resistivity were measured using an -step proler and a four-point probe system, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to investigate the lm morphology and the surface grain size of the plated copper lms. The impurity levels and atomic composition were determined using Auger electron spectroscopy (AES).

Fig. 4. SEM photograph for three values of the current density. (a) 2.4 A/dm2 (b) 2.8 A/dm2 .

Figure 3 shows the thickness of the plated copper lm as a function of the electrode distance. The thicknesses of the copper lms were 0.94 and 0.74 m at electrode distances of 1 and 4 cm, respectively. The highest deposition rate, above 310 nm/min, was obtained at 1-cm electrode distance.

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

2. Surface Morphology 1. Deposition Rate

Figure 2 shows the lm thickness of the plated copper lm as a function of the current density. The 0.36- to 1.0-m-thick copper lms were grown at deposition rates from 120 up to 330 nm/min. The deposition rate increased with increasing current density. At a 3.2-A/dm2 current density, the deposition rate was very high, exceeding 300 nm/min, and the lm become a dark brown color and rough.

SEM was used to investigate the eect of the current density and the electrode distance on surface morphol-

Fig. 3. Film thickness vs. electrode distance.

Fig. 5. SEM photograph for three values of the electrode distance. (a) 1 cm (b) 2 cm (c) 3 cm.

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 38, No. 3, March 2001

Fig. 6. Film resistivity vs. current density.

ogy. The current density eects on the grain size and shapes are shown in Figure 4. As the current density increases, the grains become smaller, but the shapes of the grains are non-porous and non-homogeneous. At lower current density, the copper lms appeared to be very bright, but they were a dark brown color at higher current density. Figure 5 shows SEM photographs of the copper surface for dierent electrode distances. There were no differences in grain sizes and shapes under any of the conditions, but lm roughness was bad for large electrode distances.

Fig. 7. Analysis of plated copper lms.(a)Auger electron spectrum of the surface. (b)Auger depth prole of copper lms.

3. Film Resistivity

The electrical resistivity of the plated copper lms was determined from the calculated product of the sheet resistance and the lm thickness. The sheet resistance usually was measured at six dierent points and the averaged value was used for the resistivity. The resistivity was insensitive to the grain size, grain shape, purity, and surface roughness. Figure 6 shows the variation of the resistivity with current density. At a 2.4-A/dm2 current density, the lowest value of 2.4 cm was obtained. At higher current densities, smaller and rougher grains were obtained. As the surface roughness and nonuniformity of the copper lm increased, the resistivity of the lm increased abruptly. Nonuniform grains resulted in structural defects in the plated copper lms.

were monitored as functions of the sputtering time. Oxygen and carbon were not found, within the detection limit as depth proling proceeded on the surface and in the bulk.

IV. CONCLUSIONS In this study, the eects of electroplating processing on lm characteristics were investigated. The results are as follows: 1. As the current density increased, the deposition rate of the copper lms increased. 2. The grain sizes of the lms increased with increasing lm thickness, but the surfaces were rougher. 3. The resistivity mainly depended on the lm morphology and was as low as 2.5 cm. 4. For all of the processing conditions, pure copper lms were obtained ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank ULTECH Co., Ltd., for providing the machine and C. G. Suk and J. K. Choi for useful discussions. This work was supported by System IC 2010 project.

4. Film Purity

Figure 7 shows an Auger electron spectrum of the surface and an Auger depth prole of a plated copper lm within the detection level of the AES analysis, there are no impurities. The AES depth prole studies were performed using argon-ion sputtering in which the atomic concentrations of a copper, oxygen, carbon, and silicon

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