Influence of initial microstructure and impurities on Cu room-temperature recrystallization (self-annealing)

Formation mechanism of pinholes in electroplated Cu films and its mitigation

“…The <111>||ND (deposition direction) preferred crystallographic orientation had also been found in the electrolytic Cu deposition of the through-/blind-hole structures[6][7][8][9]. Based on surface energy minimization, [111] is the preferred direction for Cu electrodeposition because the close-packed plane of the face-centered cubic (FCC) Cu is {111}[23][24]. Because {111} are the close-packed planes of the FCC structure, the (111) texture has higher chemical resistance than other texture[13], which is likely beneficial in the prevention of pinhole formation in the postetching process, as that observed in Figs.…”

A Study of Difference in Reflow Characteristics Between Electroplated and Sputtered Cu in a Dual-Damascene Fabrication Process for Silicon Semiconductor Devices

“…Especially, electroplated Cu films undergo self-annealing that is related to the presence of specific organic and inorganic additives in the plating bath. [26][27][28][29] Therefore we used a plating bath with no additives in this study. The Cu films were deposited on 50-nm-thick sputtered TaN barrier layers using the conditions shown in Table I. The TEGs had via holes of 120 nm diameter, 500 nm depth, and 360 nm pitch fabricated in a SiO 2 layer on Si wafers.…”

Influence of thermal cycling treatment on the anneal hardening effect of Cu–10Zn Alloy

“…This decrease of hardness near 350 • C corresponds to the start of recrystallization. If the recrystallization temperature for the pure copper is reported to be around 240 • C [20] then it is obvious that the anneal hardening not only strengthens but also increases recrystallization temperature of alloy Cu-10Zn at about 350 • C for both set of samples. The effect of Zn to increase the recrystallization temperature in comparison to pure copper was reported in previous papers [12,14].…”