NIST and Dow Corning say they've reached a major milestone in the development of low-k materials. The U.S. government institute and the materials manufacturer claim they have lowered the dielectric constant of Dow's XLK spin-on material in laboratory tests to a k value of 1.5 while revealing a significant correlation between the film's structure and the constant. This value meets the goal set forth in the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors for low-k materials, Dow points out. The tests were conducted during a recently completed joint study using Dow's HSQ-based low-k film. The partners say they lowered the dielectric constant to 1.5 by slightly increasing the film's porosity and decreasing its wall density.
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