Copper Electroplating Enters Mainstream Processing

摘要

Like Hamlet, three years ago our industry was locked in a "to-be-or-not-to-be" question as to whether it would use copper in a high-volume manufacturing environment. Worried consideration was given to whether the challenges of copper integration — regardless of the deposition method - could be met for devices to realize a benefit from this low-resistivity metal. A year later, the question was answered for early adopters such as IBM and Motorola and soon after AMD and NEC. The answer was that, yes, copper could realize benefits and, yes, integration methods exist to prevent contamination from limiting yield and making production uneconomi-cal (Fig. 1).