Use silicide passivation instead of a thick Ta barrier layer.
To ensure a small gap between the metal line and ILD. It could be made in different ways, such as using soluble Barriers, we can use a difference in temperature expansion coefficients, etc.
Use ILD with non-uniform density. Actually, we need high density of the material to prevent diffusion of Cu in to ILD
Air daps also prevent the formation of voids within the metal via a metal line - we already have voids. Very strong Cu-electromigration might slightly affect the surface of the via and metal line, but the voids will not be formed within the metal.
In Step 3 - Sacrificial Light Absorbing Layer deposition - use hot air for the material solidification on the wafer during the Spinon process. This will allow the termination of the furnace and additional movements of the wafer. The high pressure above the rotating wafer will prevent the material from contamination.
Regarding the Step 4 - Photo Lithography (PL) operation simplification:
Why do we develop within the costly PL equipment? Developing the exposed resist is just a wet etch/clean process that can be performed with regular cheap wet cleaning equipment.
Another idea regarding Step 4 - Via Patterning simplification:
Why do we need to develop exposed PR at all? Exposed PR is removed by an aqueous solution, meaning it can be removed by plasma. So, the idea is to apply plasma etch directly after exposure.
test
The process is related to microelectronics - microchip manufacturing. The purpose of the process is to create a SiO2 layer on the surface of a Si wafer. Equipment: Vertical furnace to heat the wafers in the Q2 atmosphere and perform oxidation on the wafer surface. Process: The oxidation occurs on the front side and on the back side of the wafer Requirements: Create a SiO2 thin layer with a certain thickness and low sigma - low standard deviation of the thickness between the wafers and within the wafer Failure: Wafers from the lower zone have higher thickness and significantly higher within wafer sigma (standard deviation of the thickness within the wafer)
Wet cleaning is widely used in microchip manufacturing. Single wafer equipment is working as follows. A wafer rotates, and chemistry is poured from a movable nozzle. Water rinsing is performed at the end of the process. Loading of a new batch of the chemistry resulted in excursion - a strongly increased amount of defects was observed on the wafer after the processing. The project is dedicated to the failure analysis and creation of innovative solutions.
Flash heating of a wafer is widely used in microchip manufacturing. The purpose of the process is to prevent the diffusion of ions and atoms. During the flash process, a wafer breakage occurs. The project's purpose is to learn and understand the mechanism of the wafer breakage and propose the solutions to prevent the wafer breakage