Uniformity improvement at Cu-electroplating - PRIZ Analysis
Increase the electroplating bath temperature by 5-10°C to disproportionately accelerate the temperature-sensitive reaction kinetics compared to the diffusion process, reducing the kinetic limitation.
5
Reduce the diameter of the anode - a smaller size of the Cu anode should act similarly to the added dummy cathode.
4
Increase the voltage of the process to ensure the electroplating is in diffusion limitation mechanism - Increase the cathodic overpotential through refined voltage control in the plating recipe to enhance reaction kinetics without exceeding mass transport limits, ensuring uniform deposition across the wafer
3
Implement pulsed current electrodeposition with tailored duty cycles and pulse frequencies to intermittently boost discharge kinetics while allowing diffusion to equilibrate, reducing the kinetic limitation under standard conditions
2
Begin the Cu deposition with the electroless process - ensure to increase the thickness of the Cu-seed layer, which will result in the reduction of the resistivity
1
Insert the separation net near the wafer to reduce the diffusion of ions to the wafer - this is the way to reduce the rate of diffusion.
0
Similar projects
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.
This project investigates radial non-uniformity of CDO low-k dielectric deposited by PECVD and its possible impact on wafer performance. Final test data indicate that faster dies are mainly located closer to the wafer center, while slower dies are more often found near the wafer periphery. The corresponding RC-delay trend also increases toward the wafer edge. The focus of the project is the capacitance component of RC-delay. CDO is expected to provide a low dielectric constant between BEOL metal lines, but the deposited film may not have uniform properties across the wafer. Near the wafer edge, the process can be influenced by different gas flow, plasma behavior, residence time, temperature, and pumping conditions. This may lead to stronger oxidation and deeper precursor decomposition near the periphery, forming CDO that is more oxygen-rich, less carbon-rich, denser, and closer in behavior to SiO₂. As a result, the dielectric constant k may increase toward the wafer edge, causing higher interline capacitance, higher RC-delay, and lower die speed. The project uses Functional Modeling to understand how PECVD chamber components and process conditions affect CDO film properties. The goal is to identify the main functional and problematic interactions and propose directions for compensation, such as radial gas-flow tuning, multi-zone showerhead design, edge compensation flow, and local plasma or temperature control.