A reliable metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor exceeding 250nF has been integrated into the copper/low-K backend of a high-performance 90nm SOI technology. The reduction of supply grid voltage transients has enhanced microprocessor performance by approximately 10% without increasing the chip area or power consumption.
Thin tin films were deposited on oxidized silicon substrates by sputtering. Changes in both the phase and morphology of the films were studied as a function of the annealing process, time and atmosphere. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was used to study phase evolution of the films during annealing. Atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were employed to characterize microstructure and morphology of the films. XRD analyses revealed phase transformations from metallic Sn to romarchite and finally to cassiterite as a function of higher annealing temperature. Differences in the phase transformation rate from metallic tin films to tin dioxide were observed between oxygen and air atmospheres. Little variation in grain size was observed during oxidation annealing from metallic to oxide states in either air or oxygen. However, surface roughness of the films was strongly dependent on the annealing atmospheres. The films annealed under air showed that surface roughness increased linearly with time and temperature, while the surface roughness change of the tin oxide films annealed under oxygen exhibited saturation behavior. The surface morphology change of the tin oxide films processed in oxygen exhibited different behavior from those processed in air.
Metal thin film resistors have been integrated into a damascene-copper multilayer metallization system for mixed-signal BiCMOS technology platforms. The thin film process can be adjusted to achieve resistors with very low temperature coefficients, high linearity, low noise, and improved matching as compared to resistors based on implanted silicon or polysilicon processing. In addition, improvements good RF performance was observed.
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