Date: 15/03/2011

Semiconductor equipment supporting pre- and post-processing of low K dielectric

Novellus Systems has announced the addition of VECTOR Excel to its VECTOR product line of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. VECTOR Excel is a modular system addressing the needs of advanced technology nodes that require pre- and/or post-processing of dielectric films, such as diffusion barriers.

Novellus says the new system incorporates an innovative interface engineering approach developed by Novellus that results in a significant reduction in the RC delay constant without needing to incorporate new materials into the back-end-of line (BEOL) integration scheme.

Novellus engineers have developed new interface engineering technologies that minimize the damage to ultra-low K dielectric materials and have incorporated this technology into the new VECTOR Excel modular architecture. Available technologies include a remote plasma pre-treatment module (CLEAR) and a dual pre-heat/pre-treatment spectral irradiance module (LUMIER) that can be configured with a wide variety of lamps with different frequencies.

According to Novellus the VECTOR Excel integrated process results in a 4 percent reduction in capacitance as compared to traditional in-situ plasmas. This "zero damage" process enables interconnect RC delay reduction (device speed increase) without introducing new materials into the BEOL dielectric stack, thereby reducing the risk of adoption to our customers.

Novellus says the PECVD module of VECTOR Excel employs Novellus' proven multi-station sequential deposition (MSSD) architecture that results in best-in-class wafer-to-wafer, within-wafer and point-to-point repeatability, with each wafer progressing through a single deposition path. This new modular platform achieves a 15 percent capital productivity improvement over the competition by moving the pre- and post-processing steps out of the critical throughput path, claims Novellus.

A typical installation of VECTOR Excel systems for 20,000 wafer starts results in a 26 percent reduction in overall fab footprint as compared to competitive offerings with equal production output, as per Novellus.

"The interface between diffusion barriers, IMD layers and copper interconnects is critical in determining the BEOL interconnect delay and reliability, including electromigration and time dependent dielectric breakdown," said Kevin Jennings, senior vice president of Novellus' PECVD Business Unit. "The new VECTOR Excel platform combines innovative interface engineering technology with the trusted productivity of Novellus' multi-station sequential deposition architecture to address the challenges associated with depositing these advanced films."