STUDY OF ASHING FOR LOW-K DIELECTRICS USING THE N2/O2 FERRITE-CORE INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMAS

초록

in order to fully take advantage of copper interconnects in semiconductor devices, low-k dielectric materials must be used to reduce interelectrode capacitance. however, standard ashing process using O2 plasmas in the conveentional asher can damage the low-k layer through oxidation, resulting in the higher capacitance and thus defeating the purpose of using such a film. in the present work, we report the characteristics of ashing process using the N2/O2 gas mixture in the inductively coupled plasma system with a ferrite-core.