Implementation of a carbon doped low-k material for 0.18 micron technology

In the development of interconnect architecture for future technologies, LSI has determined that adoption of low-k dielectrics will give higher performance gain as opposed to the replacement of aluminum with copper. The goal is to integrate a robust low-k material for LSI's 0.18 um subtractive aluminum technology with at least 20% capacitance reduction. As a result we have successfully integrated and qualified a flowable carbon doped low-k-film. Dielectric constant ranges from 2.8 to 3.5. We have achieved comparable via resistance performance and 20% to 35% reductions in the line-to-line capacitance compared to the conventional HDP scheme. Greater than 90% system uptime was obtained during the marathon. The process has been released to manufacturing with statistical process control monitoring for the past few months.