Barrier integrity of electroless NiB and CoWP/NiB thin layers against copper (Cu) diffusion was evaluated by time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) under bias temperature stress (BTS) using metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) test structures. The BTS tests were carried out also for an approximately 2.2-nm-thick organosilane monolayer (OSML), which has been used as the underlayer of the electroless barrier layers (EBLs). It was found that the barrier integrity of the EBLs was NiB 40 nm > NiB 10 nm > CoWP/NiB 40 nm = CoWP/NiB 10 nm in this order. The field acceleration parameter of the TDDB lifetime was almost the same for all EBLs. Initial failures and wide lifetime distributions were observed for CoWP/NiB when the NiB catalyst layer for CoWP was not thick enough, which is considered to be due to the large surface roughness. In addition, the OSML was found to have some barrier properties. Although the reliability of OSML was inferior to electroless NiB and CoWP/NiB barrier layers, it is considered that the barrier integrity of the EBLs was partially supported by the OSML.
To investigate the similarity and difference of substrate conduction type in the time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) tests for the barrier integrity against Cu diffusion under bias-temperature stress (BTS), the TDDB reliability of electroless NiB and CoWP/NiB was determined by metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) structures on n-type Si (n-Si) substrates, and the test results were compared with those using p-type Si (p-Si) substrates. The TDDB results and mechanism were observed to be qualitatively the same as Cu diffusion for both conduction types. However, the TDDB lifetime using p-Si was found to be potentially shorter because of the reverse bias conditions than that using n-Si under the forward bias conditions.
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