Lecture8 :Physical Vapor Deposition

In this chapter we will see various deposition techniques that are used in microelectronic
fabrication. If a material like copper or tungsten has to be deposited onto the silicon wafer, there
are multiple ways to achieve that goal. The deposition methods used in semiconductor industry can
be divided into four groups.

1. Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD)

2. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD)
3. Electrochemical Deposition (ECD)
4. Spin-on coating

Among these four processes, PVD and spin-on coating are purely physical processes. CVD and
ECD are chemical processes. That means in CVD and ECD, chemical reactions occur.

In IC manufacturing, the actual quantity of material to be deposited in any single step is very low.
The deposited material will be in the form of a thin film, almost like the painting on a surface and
in reality much thinner than the paint coating.

Thin film requirements: Any deposition method must satisfy certain requirements:

 The deposition must be uniform throughout the wafer

 A very good control is necessary. If we want 1000 nm of the material deposited on the
wafer, then the variation must be within one or two percentage. i.e. the thickness of the film
after deposition must be at the minimum 980 nm and at the most 1020 nm.
 In the places where trenches or vias are made, the side wall coverage must be good. This is
explained in the later section (figure 3.11)
 The material should adhere to the wafer well and should not peel off
 Dust particles should not fall onto the wafer during the deposition process
 The crystal structure of the film deposited must be of sufficient quality because it will affect
the properties of the film. For example, when copper is deposited, we need large grain size
since it will result in less electrical resistance.
 If we are depositing alloys, then the composition must be uniform throughout the process

In general, PVD is used to deposit titanium, titanium nitrate, tantalum, tantalum nitrate, aluminum
and a very thin film of copper called seed layer. CVD is used to deposit tungsten, titanium, again
copper seed layer, silicon di-oxide, silicon nitride, etc. Electrochemical deposition is used for
depositing copper. Spin-on coating is used to deposit insulators or dielectric materials, which are
usually organic in nature.

Historically, some of the metals were evaporated and then the vapor was deposited onto the wafer.
The wafer would be kept at lower temperature and the vapor will cool down and form the solid
metal. This methods used large amount of energy and had other difficulties. It could not be used for
all materials, and particularly for alloys. The material will also deposit on other places like the
chamber walls. Hence, it is not currently used for IC manufacturing.

If the raw material is taken in gaseous form and the final material is deposited on the wafer after
reaction, it is called chemical vapor deposition (CVD). If the material is taken in solid state, but
sent as very small particles or atoms and deposited on the wafer without any reaction, it is called
physical vapor deposition (PVD). We will first see the details of the PVD.

Physical Vapor Deposition:

DC sputtering

The PVD equipment will be about 4 ft in height and 4 ft in diameter. The material to be deposited
(e.g. titanium) will be at the top, as shown in schematic Fig 3.1

Figure 3.1. Schematic of a PVD chamber

The tungsten will be in the form of a disc of 1 inch thickness and 5 or 6 inches diameter. At the
bottom, silicon wafer will be kept. Apart from these, there will be facilities to allow gases into the
chamber and to evacuate the chamber with vacuum pump and electrical connections to apply very
high voltage (of the order of 10000 V). The negative plate will be near the tungsten and the positive
plate will be near the wafer. Tungsten (or any other material in its place) is called target. Why is it
called target? How is it deposited onto the wafer?

Let us consider an example. In old houses, if we stand inside the house and throw a ball at the top
of the house, some of the dust material will fall on the floor. If we throw the ball repeatedly, after
some time, the whole floor will be covered with dust. Some dust particles may be coarse and may
not stick well to the floor. The fine dust particles will stick well to the floor.

In PVD, we can visualize a similar process: Instead of the ball, argon ions are used. The ceiling
represents the tungsten target. When the ions hit the target, a few atoms will break away from the
target and fall on the wafer. This is a very simplified description of PVD process. PVD is also
called sputtering.

First the air in the chamber must be removed and vacuum must be created. Then argon gas sent
inside and a low pressure will be maintained. If high voltage is applied to the plates, a plasma will
be generated. The plasma will have electrons and positive argon ions. The plasma cannot be
generated by normal 230 volts. The positive argon ions will be attracted towards the negative plate.
They will move towards the negative plates and hit the tungsten with high force. That is why
tungsten is called target in this process.

Figure 3.2. Argon ions hitting the target

Since the argon ions impinge on the target with large force, some of the target atoms will break and
come out , as shown in Fig 3.2. How many tungsten atoms will come for each argon ion hitting the
target? This number is called sputtering yield. It depends on the speed of the argon ions, the angle
of the impact and also on the bond strength of the target. Tungsten is one of the hard materials. If a
relatively soft material such as copper is used as target, then the yield will be higher.

The atoms from the target will come towards the wafer with some force. Not all of them will
deposit on the wafer. Some will be deposited (Figure 3. 3), while some will bounce back (Figure
3.4). Some may even bounce back and remove some of the materials already deposited on the
wafer (Figure 3.5)
Figure 3.3. Processes near wafer in a PVD chamber. Deposition
 Figure 3.4 Processes near wafer in a PVD chamber. Bounce back

Figure 3.5 Processes near wafer in a PVD chamber. Resputtering

Among the tungsten atoms that fall on the wafer, the fraction that stick to the wafer is called
sticking coefficient. If all the atoms that fall on the wafer stick to it, then the sticking coefficient is
one. If none of them stick, then the sticking coefficient is zero. Typically, the sticking coefficient is
about 0.7 to 0.8.

Lecture9 : Physical Vapor Deposition continued

Certain techniques are used to ensure that the deposition is uniform. The wafer can be rotated
slowly. If the wafer is heated, then the deposited layer can soften and move and also stick well.

What is the advantage of using argon to hit the target and deposit the material on the wafer? Why
not just use evaporation?
Materials such as tungsten have very high melting point (3422 oC) and boiling points (5555 oC). It
will be very difficult and energy intensive to deposit tungsten by evaporation. Besides, if an alloy
has to be deposited, the composition of the vapor will not be the same as that of alloy. Materials
with low boiling point will tend to evaporate early. However, in PVD, since the material is
removed by the bombardment of argon ions, the operation can be conducted at relatively low
temperature. Alloys can be deposited with out difficulty.
Why do we have to use argon? Argon is an inert gas which will not react with the target or the
wafer surface. If we use oxygen or nitrogen instead, they may react with the target and or the wafer
surface. We can use other inert gases such as helium or neon. However, it is more difficult to ionize
helium or neon. They are also more expensive than argon. Hence argon is used for sputtering.

PVD can be used for depositing tungsten, titanium, tantalum, copper, Titanium nitride and tantalum
nitride. Currently titanium and tantalum metals and their nitrides are deposited using PVD.
Tungsten is deposited using chemical vapor deposition or CVD. A thin layer of copper, called seed
layer, is deposited using PVD while the remaining copper is deposited using electrochemical
deposition.

RF sputtering: All the materials we saw above are electrical conductors. PVD can be modified so
that insulators such as silicon dioxide or silicon nitride can also be deposited.

Figure 3.6. Problem in using insulator as target in PVD

What is the problem in using regular PVD for depositing an insulator like silicon dioxide?

Let us look into the figure 3.6. This explains the problem in using the normal PVD chamber to
deposit and insulator like silicon dioxide. In the beginning, argon ions will come and hit the silicon
dioxide and some of the silicon dioxide will be removed from there and deposited on the wafer.
But, the argon will get stuck on the silicon dioxide. Since it is an insulator, the charge will not be
removed. The silicon dioxide will acquire a positive charge. The backside of the glass will have
negative charge, but there will not be any electrical conduction. Very soon, the entire surface will
be positively charged and argon ions, which are also positively charged, cannot approach the glass.
The argon ions will not be able to hit the target and deposit the target material on the wafer. If we
were using a metal, then the positive charge will be neutralized because the metal will conduct the
electron from the backside to the plasma side.
In order to deposit the insulator by PVD, electrons must be supplied to the surface of the insulator
on a regular basis. This is achieved by using radio frequency (RF) AC voltage. This is sometimes
called as RF sputtering.

How does the RF PVD function? The chamber, which uses RF sputtering, looks very similar to the
one with normal sputtering, but the voltage applied will be different in this case. This is explained
in the schematics shown in figure 3.7 and 3.8. If we take an AC voltage and add it to a DC voltage,
then we will get a combined voltage as shown in this figure. If we apply only a pure AC voltage,
then 50% of the time the wafer will be positive and 50% of the time the target will be positive. But
when we apply the combined DC plus AC voltage, the wafer will be positive 75% of the time and
the target will be negative for most of the time. For a short time, the target will be positive and the
wafer will be negative.

Figure 3.7. RF sputtering. Superimposing AC on DC

Figure 3.8. Schematic of RF sputtering chamber

What is the use of this? What will happen when this RF AC voltage is applied along with the DC?
When the target is mostly negative, argon ions will come and hit it. Some of the electrons will go
and hit the wafer. The glass will be removed by the argon ion and they will go and deposit on the
wafer. For a short time, the electrode will be positive near the target; that time the electrons in the
plasma will be attracted to the target. They will hit the target. The target has argon ions and the
electrons will go and neutralize the argon ions, as shown in Fig. 3.9. Hence, the target will become
neutral. Essentially, the electrons are supplied to the target surface from the plasma side and not
from the electrical contact at the back.

Figure 3.9. RF sputtering. Events near the target

Now will the argon ions go and hit the wafer in the same time? Because argon is much more
heavier than electron, and because the duration is very short, it will not hit the wafer that much.
Since the electrons are very light (low mass), they will not cause any damage and no atom will be
taken out because of the electrons.
 Figure 3.10 RF sputtering. Events near the wafer

We saw that argon ions will not hit the wafer because it’s for a shorter duration. Even if they hit,
they will hit with less force and few hits will occur. In the beginning, in fact, the wafer will be
made negative and the target will be made positive. Because of this, the argon will hit the wafer a
little, and remove some material and make it rough. This actually facilitates good deposition of the
material in the later stages. The initial roughening of the wafer will also help in cleaning any of the
contaminant deposited on the material before this process.

Now the AC has to be applied at a very high frequency. That is why it is called RF or radio
frequency. Now almost all of the sputtering equipment are RF sputtering equipment.

Lecture10 : Physical Vapor Deposition and Chemical Vapor Deposition

Collimated and Ionized Metal Plasma (IMP):

There are some more advanced techniques in the PVD. One is called collimated PVD. Another is
called ionized metal plasma or IMP PVD.

During deposition, we want uniform deposition on the wafer. i.e. the deposited film thickness must
be the same at the centre of the wafer, at the edge of the wafer and anywhere in-between.
If the target is very small compared to the wafer, it will look like a point source for the deposited
material. In that case, the wafer centre will have higher deposition and the wafer edge will have
lower deposition.

 One way to improve this is to increase the target size. If the target is large, then the
deposition will be uniform. In that case, the target can be near the wafer and still we can get
uniform deposition.
 On the other hand, we can pull the target away. If it is too far away, then most of the wafer
will be more or less at the same distance from the target and hence, the deposition will be
uniform. This is called “long throw”.
 Additionally, the wafers can be rotated during the process, and this also helps in obtaining
uniform film thickness.

However if we increase the target distance, then the chamber will become very large and to
evacuate the chamber and operate, one will spend correspondingly high energy. The goal of
uniform deposition can be achieved by another method called collimated beam. A schematic is
shown in the figure 3.11.

Figure 3.11 Collimated beam PVD

In this, a plate with holes is placed between the target and the wafers. The target atoms, which are
coming towards the wafer, will have to come in straight line. Only then they will pass through the
collimated plate. Otherwise, they will be stopped by the plate. This ensures that all of them are
coming at similar angle and the film deposited will be uniform.
 Figure 3.12, Ionized Metal Plasma (IMP) PVD

The most advanced method to obtain uniform thickness is called ionized metal plasma or IMP. A
schematic of the IMP sputtering equipment is shown in figure 3.12. In this, the metal clusters that
are coming towards the wafers are ionized using ionizing coils. Thus the titanium or aluminum
metal atoms that are coming are ionized. They become charged and they will be attracted towards
the wafer. Hence, even if they start at a different angle when they ejected out of the target, they will
all move vertically towards the wafer because of the attractive forces. Since they are all coming at
similar angles, the deposition will be uniform. The best quality of the film is obtained when IMP
sputtering is used.

In the next section we will look into the second deposition technique, viz. CVD.

Chemical Vapor Deposition

In the PVD method described above, it is not easy to deposit a material on the side walls as shown
in fig 3.13. This is especially true if the depth is very high and the opening si small. If the ratio of
diameter (or width) to the depth, known as aspect ratio, is very high, PVD cannot give a good side
wall coverage (Figure 3.14). However, CVD can be used to get a good side wall coverage (Figure
3.15).
Figure 3.13. Schematic of wafer and sidewall before deposition

Figure 3.14. Illustration of a poorly deposited film

 Figure 3.15 a . Illustration of a good film during deposition

Figure 3.15b. Illustration of a good film at the end of deposition

Lecture11 : Chemical Vapor Deposition - continued

A large CVD chamber may be of 6 ft long and 3 ft diameter. In this, a material may be deposited
on a lot (i.e. a batch) of 25 wafers. The CVD chamber will have pipes and automatic valves to
create vacuum and to supply desired gases at controlled rates. The material to be deposited (e.g.
tungsten) will be in the form of a compound, in the gaseous form. The CVD chamber will also have
facilities to heat the wafers in a controlled fashion. A simple schematic of a CVD chamber is given
in Figure 3.16

Figure 3.16. Schematic of a CVD chamber

Operation: First the wafers are kept in the chamber and the chamber is evacuated. Then the wafers
will be heated to the desired temperature. Next the gases are supplied and they react only on the
surface of the wafer and deposit the material. For example, let us assume that we want to deposit
tungsten on the wafer. For this, a mixture of tungsten hexa fluoride, hydrogen and nitrogen (all in
gaseous form) will be supplied to the chamber at low pressure. The temperature of the wafer would
be maintained between 150 to 300 oC. In the CVD technology, the phrase “high temperature”
refers to 800+ oC and low temperature may refer to “less than 400 oC”. Very low temperature may
refer to room temperature.

In most of the CVD tools, all the chamber walls will be maintained at relatively lower temperature
compared to the wafer. Only the wafers would be heated. WF6 and H2 will react only at high
temperature. Hence the reaction will occur only on the wafer and not on the chamber walls. This
type of CVD process is called low pressure CVD or LPCVD. Using this method many materials
such as W, Ti, TiN, Cu, SiO2, Si3N4, Si etc can be deposited on wafer. The side wall coverage
will also be good.

Some example reactions to deposit various materials are given below.

1. To deposit silicon
SiCl4 + 2 H2 → Si + 4 HCl
SiH4 → Si + 2H2
2. To deposit poly silicon
SiH4 → Si + 2H2
3. To deposit silicon di oxide
SiH4 + O2 → SiO2 + 2H2
SiH4 + 2N2O → SiO2 + 2N2 + 2H2
SiH2Cl2 + 2 N2O → SiO2 + 2N2 + 2HCl
4. To deposit Silicon nitride
 3 SiCl2H2 + 4 NH2 → Si2N2 + 6H2+ 6 HCl
SiH2 + NH2 → SixNyHz+ H2 (some hydrogen is incorporated in the film)
5. To deposit Tungsten
WF2 + 3 Si → 2W + 3 SiF4
WF6 + 3 H2 → W + 6HF

There are certain disadvantages associated with the CVD process. Many of the gases used in CVD
and highly corrosive and toxic. Hence good safety measures need to be taken. Also, the cost of the
high purity chemicals is also high.

If the temperature and pressure are not controlled well, the reaction will occur in air itself and form
tungsten (or whatever we are trying to deposit). These tungsten will appear like a dust and will fall
on wafer. This dust particle will not stick well to the wafer and will degrade the deposited film
quality.

The temperature cannot be raised arbitrarily during chip manufacturing. This is because a transistor
is made with impurities doped in particular location. When the silicon wafer is heated, the dopants
will move and the transistor will not function properly as shown in Figure 3.17 and Figure 3.18 .
To avoid this, the wafer must not be heated. Then how do we deposit the material? Plasma comes
to help here.

Figure 3.17 Schematic of a transistor at room temperature

 Figure 3.18. Schematic of a transistor at high temperature. Note that the diffusion causes
merging of source and drain, leading to failure.

If the WF6 and other gases are passed while a high electric voltage is applied in the chamber,
plasma will form. This is similar to creating plasma in PVD. Now the reaction will occur even at
low temperature. This type of CVD is called Plasma Enhanced CVD or PE-CVD. In this method,
high magnetic field can be applied to increase the density of plasma and improve the deposited film
quality. This process is called High Denisty Plasma CVD or HDP-CVD.

We saw the materials such as silicon dioxide can be deposited using CVD. For example, Tetra
Ethyl Oxy Silane (TEOS) can be heated to high temperature (or disintegrate in presence of plasma)
and form silicon dioxide. Similarly silane gas (SiH4) and ammonia will react to form silicon
nitride. These films would be called as LP nitride, PE-nitride or HDP-nitride depending on the
method used to deposit them.

Lecture12 :Chemical Vapor Deposition, Electrochemical Deposition, Spin-on coating

APCVD and LPCVD:

There is also another CVD method run at normal pressure. It is called atmospheric pressured CVD
or AP-CVD. Here the temperature is relatively higher, in the range of 600 to 800 oC. In this
method, a thick film can be formed quickly. However, there is risk of generating many dust
particles and the film quality will be poorer. This method is used only in a few select cases.

Mass transfer control vs Reaction control: The following steps occur during CVD. First the reactant
molecules diffuse through the boundary layer near gas-solid interface. Next the adsorb on the
surface. In the third step, they diffuse on the surface. In the fourth step, they react with each other
and the solid product is formed. Any gaseous byproduct formed may be adsorbed on the surface.
Next, they desorb and diffuse outwards into the gas stream and get carried away.
When high temperatures are used, the reaction rate is very high and the rate of diffusion of the
reactants through the boundary later decides the film growth rate. On the other hand, when the
temperatures are lower, the mass transfer rate will decrease a bit, but the reaction rate will decrease
a lot, and the surface reaction rate will decide the film growh rate. A plot of film growth rate vs
inverse of temperature will appear as shown below.

Figure 3.19. A qualitative plot of growth rate (in log scale) vs inverse of temperature.

The two different zones where diffusion is rate limiting and kinetics are rate limiting are marked.
APCVD is usually operated in high temperature regime, i.e. the film growth rate is diffusion
controlled or mass transfer controlled. LPCVD is usually operated in relatively low temperatures
and is reaction rate controlled.

We saw that sometimes the temperature has to be raised to anywhere between 150 to 1000 oC. For
lower temperatures, normal heaters may be used. For high temperatures, heating lamps are used.
The lamps enable us to start and stop the heating very quickly. This in turn results in good control
of the deposition process.

Of late, organic gases containing metal atoms or ions are used in CVD. These are called metal-
organic or MO-CVD. Based on a process that is similar to CVD, it is possible to create films of
certain materials with exactly one atom thickness! This is called atomic layer deposition (ALD).
Atomic Layer Deposition: ALD can be thought of as a CVD technique with precise flow control.
Consider a reaction between water vapor and trimethyl aluminum (TMA) to produce alumina
(Al2O3) layer. The overall reaction is

If both reactants are supplied to the chamber containing wafer, alumina layer will form on the
wafer, but the thickness will not be easy to control. However, in ALD, first only water vapor is
sent to the chamber. A monolayer of water will chemisorb onto the wafer. Then the chamber is
evacuated and all the water vapor present, except the adsorbed molecules, will be removed. Next, a
pulse of TMA is introduced in the chamber. Now, the TMA will react with limited water molecules
present on the wafer and produce exactly one layer of alumina. The chamber is evacuated again
and the water vapor and TMA are sent in sequence to grow the exact number of alumina layers
required. At present, ALD is used for growing gate oxides in the advanced chips. Instead of SiO2,
other materials such as HfO2 (hafnium oxide) are used as gate oxide in these chips and ALD
offers the control necessary to deposit thin layers. The reaction between tetrakis dimethyl amido
hafnium (structure given below) and water or ozone results in hafnium oxide.

Similarly, tetrakis dimethyl amido zirconium and water can be used as two reactants to obtain
zirconia (zirconium oxide) in ALD.

Molecular beam epitaxy: Another technique in research stage is called molecular beam epitaxy
(MBE). This is done in very high vacuum (10-8 Pa). The material to be deposited is heated and the
molecules (or atoms) will evaporate. The wafer is kept at a lower temperature. Due to the high
vacuum, the molecules will have a long mean free path and will not interact with one another. They
will deposit on the wafer and due to the slow growth rate, it is possible to get single crystal growth
using MBE. The main disadvantage of MBE is that it is a very slow process and hence is not yet
suitable for implementation in semiconductor industry.
Copper deposited by PVD or CVD method has slightly higher resistance than the film deposited
using electrochemical methods. Hence electrochemical deposition (ECD) is used for coating the
wafer with copper.

Electrochemical deposition (ECD):

Copper is used as interconnect material in the ICs. Copper can be deposited by PVD or CVD.
However, the copper deposited by ECD has a lower resistivity and a better fill characteristic. The
basic principle of electrochemical deposition is very simple. One can even try it at home. You can
take two normal batteries and stack one on top of another and get a 3 volt battery combination.
Two metal plates (e.g. key or shaving blade) should be connected to the positive and negative end
by wires. In a glass beaker, some water and copper sulfate should be taken. If the metal plates are
dipped inside the solution, without touching each other and then the connected to the batteries, then
copper will deposit onto the metal connected to the negative terminal and oxygen will evolve from
the metal connected to the positive terminal. In this system, the metal connected to the negative
terminal is called cathode and the metal connected to the positive terminal is called anode. Using
the same principle, gold or silver is also coated on inexpensive ornaments.

We have to remember that silicon is a semiconductor and the wafer must be made conductive for
electrochemical deposition. Therefore, a thin layer of copper is deposited on the wafer using PVD
or CVD first. This is called seed layer. Then the wafer is kept in a tank containing copper sulfate
solution. The negative terminal of a voltage controlling system is connected to the wafer while the
positive terminal will be connected to a copper block. When copper is deposited on the wafer, the
copper content of the solution will decrease. If we use copper block as anode, then copper will
dissolve from it and the solution will have a uniform and constant copper content. By controlling
the temperature of the bath and the voltage applied, the thickness of the copper deposited can be
controlled.

Apart from copper sulfate, a few other chemicals are usually added to the bath. This enables the
deposited film to have good quality, without voids. Fig 3.20 shows a poor quality deposit and the
good quality deposit. Certain large organic chemicals, called macromolecules, are added to the bath
to obtain a leveled surface. These molecules tend to adsorb on the surface and suppress the
deposition rates. They are more likely to adsorb on the flat surface and less likely to adsorb inside
trenches and holes. Thus, they reduce the deposition rate on the top surface, but do not affect the
deposition rate inside the trench and holes significantly. These are called suppressors or
levelers. Certain chemicals called accelerators are also added to the electrochemical bath. They
improve the deposition rate. They compete with suppressors in adsorbing to the surface and tend to
adsorb more inside the trenches and holes. They also lead to less surface roughness and more
uniform grain size of the deposit. They are sometimes called as brighteners. The addition of
suppressor and brighteners in appropriate concentration makes the ‘bottom up’ fill possible in
electrochemical deposition of copper. Note that the mechanism of action of suppressors and
brighteners are not always supported by experimental evidence and in many cases remain as
hypothesis. However since they result in good quality film, they are used commercially.
FIGURE 3.20. Examples of poor quality deposits and good quality deposits

While PVD or CVD can be used to coat copper on the wafer, it is used only for coating the seed
layer. This is because superior quality copper is obtained by electrochemical deposition. For
example, the electrical resistance of the copper obtained by electrochemical deposition is lower
than that obtained by CVD or PVD. Another important property called electromigration-resistance,
is more for electrochemically deposited copper. Electromigration is the tendency of the material to
move with flow of current. If electromigration is high, then the wire will degrade soon and hence is
not suitable. If electromigration resistance is high, then the material is considered as suitable. Thus,
the ideal interconnect material should have low electrical resistance and high electromigration
resistance. If the grain size of the deposited metal is large, it will tend to have better
electromigration resistance. Since electrochemically deposited copper has large grain size and
achieves low electrical resistance and high electromigration resistance, this method is used in
semiconductor industry for depositing copper.

Spin on coating:
This method is used for depositing organic materials. The equipment is similar to the tool used in
lithography for coating photo resist on to the wafer. First, the material to be deposited is dissolved
in a solvent such as acetone or ethanol. Next, the wafer is kept on a platform and is rotated at about
500 rpm. While the wafer is spinning, the solution is poured on the wafer. Due to the rotation, the
solution will spread on the wafer. Then the wafer is rotated at higher speed (about 5000 rpm). This
controls the thickness of the solution. If the wafer is also heated, the solvent will evaporate, leaving
the material on top of the wafer in the form of a film.

Traditionally silicon dioxide is used as the insulator between copper wires. Recently some
materials called low-k materials, which have low dielectric constant, are used as insulators. Some
examples of low-k materials are poly-tetrafluroethylene (PTFE, also called Teflon), benzo
cyclobutene and polyimide (structure given below) This enables the chip to run faster and reduce
the electrical current loss. Spin-on method is used to deposit the low-k materials.
 (a) (b)
Fig 3.21 Structure of (a) benzocyclobutene and (b) imide

In the next section, we will see the techniques used to remove excess materials, under the topic
“removal methods”.