Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy of Low-k Dielectric Material on Patterned Wafers

Abstract

With many of research on Fourier transform IR (FTIR) on low-k materials, our experiments extended the FTIR spectroscopy application to characterization and analysis of the low-k dielectric thin film properties on patterned wafers. FTIR spectra on low-k materials were successfully captured under three sampling modes: reflection, attenuated total reflectance (ATR), and mapping mode. ATR mode is more suitable for CH x band than reflection mode due to its higher sensitivity in this range. FTIR spectroscopy signal analysis on mixed structures (metal and low-k dielectric material) on patterned wafers was also investigated with mapping mode. Based on our investigation, FTIR can be used for low-k material studies on patterned wafer. #

Enhancement of Raman signals from low-k dielectrics with angle-resolved light scattering on nanostructure patterned Cu/low-k interconnects of IC devices

“…In our previous studies, Raman and FTIR vibrational microscopies were successfully used to characterize the low-k dielectric properties of Cu/ low-k interconnects as well as their degradation behavior during reliability tests, and allowing us to clarify the low-k related reliability failure mechanism. [5][6][7] Owing to the small thickness of the low-k IMD layer and complicated mixture of Cu nanostructures in this form of IC device, more detailed study is required to enable the separation of the low-k dielectric signals from those of the Cu/low-k interconnects during spectroscopic analysis. Generally, a long spectrum acquisition time is required to collect enough signals from nanoscale low-k IMD materials.…”