Research Progress on Atomic Layer Deposition of TaNx Film
WU Liying, QU Minni, FU Xuecheng, TIAN Miao, MA Ling, WANG Ying, CHENG Xiulan
Center for Advanced Electronic Materials and Devices, School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Abstract: For the copper interconnect process in microelectronics, it requires to deposit a continuous and well-shaped copper barrier layer. Tantalum nitride is a transition metal nitride and acts as diffusion barrier to metal interconnect, due to its high hardness and controllable electrical conductivity. In the microelectronics industry, tantalum nitride is one of the most widely studied diffusion barrier materials in copper interconnection technology, with the decrease of critical dimension for integrated circuit and the increase of aspect ratio, the early PVD process is difficult to meet future production requirements, thus atomic layer deposition technique plays a crucial role for ultra-thin tantalum nitride barrier layer. The process optimization of most ALD tantalum nitride thin films is mainly focused on controlling the composition and process of precursor and reducing agent to avoid the formation of high-resistance Ta3N5. With the continuous decrease of the feature size of circuit devices, the proportion of TaN barrier layer to Cu metal is also decreasing due to the limited dimension of interconnect line. Considering the significantly lower resistivity (1.67 μΩ·cm ) of Cu interconnect lines relative to those of Cu barrier materials (The resistivity of TaN is lower than 0.25 mΩ·cm, and the resistivity of copper is extremely low (1.67 μΩ·cm), this can result in poor conductivity of the entire interconnect. As the high resistivity of the interconnect line eventually leads to delays in working signal transmission, as well as high power consumption of device, the thickness of Cu barrier layer should be minimized. In addition, the extremely thin copper diffusion barrier layer is required to be deposited continuously on the interlayer insulator layer (ILD) of the device. Atomic layer deposition technology can meet these conditions simultaneously. For the atomic layer deposition of tantalum nitride, the tantalum halide or tantalum metal organic is used as the precursor, and the film prepared by the atomic layer deposition process has been extensively studied. In addition, these precursors are solid at room temperature, which may result in particle contamination of the device and the deposited film. Subsequently, metal-organic precursors such as alkoxide and amido were developed for the preparation of thin films. Studies have shown that tantalum alkoxide precursor usually contains oxygen element, which leads to higher oxygen residue of tantalum nitride deposited in the atomic layer. However, amide-group or imide-group precursors can prepare films with less oxygen impurities, but their thermal stability is poor. In this paper, the research progress of atomic layer deposited tantalum nitride is reported. The progress of thermal atomic layer deposition (TALD) and the plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) of tantalum nitride thin film are reviewed. The process parameters and the properties of TaN thin films prepared with inorganic tantalum halide and tantalum metal organics as precursors are summarized. The advantages and disadvantages of each process are compared.
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2020, Vol. 34 
