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Silsesquioxane-based Photopatternable Porous Low-k Dielectric Materials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Alshakim Nelson
Affiliation:
jrathore@us.ibm.com, IBM Almaden Research center, San Jose, California, United States
Jitendra S Rathore
Affiliation:
bwdavis@us.ibm.com, IBM Almaden Research center, San Jose, California, United States
Blake Davis
Affiliation:
brockpj@almaden.ibm.com, IBM Almaden Research center, San Jose, California, United States
Phillip Brock
Affiliation:
sooriyak@almaden.ibm.com, IBM Almaden Research center, San Jose, California, United States
Ratnam Sooriyakumaran
Affiliation:
rdmiller@almaden.ibm.com, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, United States
Robert Miller
Affiliation:
qhlin@us.ibm.com, IBM Watson Research Center, Yorktown heights, New York, United States
Qinghuang Lin
Affiliation:
alshak@us.ibm.com, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, United States
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Abstract

The future resolution requirements for the semiconductor industry demand advanced lithographic techniques, such as immersion and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technologies, which will increase the cost of microelectronics manufacturing. Currently, low-k dielectric materials, which are used as insulating layers between the copper wiring, are indirectly patterned using a set of sacrificial layers and etch processes. The sacrificial layers include a photoresist polymer that must first be imaged prior to transferring the pattern to the underlying layers, including the dielectric layer. In order to reduce the number of processing steps required for semiconductor manufacturing, we have developed a novel photo-patternable low-k dielectric material that (1) eliminates the need for sacrificial layers and (2) reduces the number of wafer processing steps. Silsesquioxane copolymers that undergo acid-catalyzed crosslinking when exposed to 193nm wavelength were synthesized. In addition to the direct photo-patternability, the patterned structures are suitable as a dielectric material with a dielectric constant as low as 2.4, and an appreciable elastic modulus (E > 4.0 GPa). These photo-patternable low-k materials represent a ‘greener' approach to semiconductor manufacturing which has the ability to reduce cost, waste materials, and energy consumption.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

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