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Imec tackles interconnect heating at 1nm
Belgian research lab imec has developed new ways to use metal interconnects in chips silicon chips built with 1nm process technology.
www.eenewseurope.com, Jul. 06, 2021 –
Scaling down the logic technology roadmap to 1nm and beyond will require the introduction of new conductor materials in the most critical layers of the back-end-of-line.
Researchers at imec have shown stoichiometric AlCu and Al2Cu films with resistivity as low as 9.5µΩcm for new conductors in advanced semi-damascene interconnect integration schemes combined with airgaps.
In this combination, however, Joule heating effects are becoming increasingly important, and the heating effect has been shown by the lab in a 12-layer back-end-of-line (BEOL) structure in a paper at the 2021 International Interconnect Technology Conference (IITC 2021) this week in Kyoto, Japan.
Aluminium and ruthenium (Ru) have lower resistivity than conventional elemental metals such as copper, cobalt or molybdenum. at 1nm. Imec has investigated the resistivity of thin films of aluminides, including AlNi, Al3Sc, AlCu and Al2Cu. At 20nm thickness and above, all PVD-deposited films showed resistivities comparable to or lower than molybdenum. The lowest resistivity of 9.5µΩcm was achieved for 28nm films of AlCu and Al2Cu – a value that goes below that of Cu. The experiments also indicated challenges for the studied aluminides, such as the control of the film stoichiometry and surface oxidation.
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