Research on Copper Electroplating Technology for
High Density TSV Filling
Huan Liu* Fei Geng
NATIONAL CENTER FOR NATIONAL CENTER FOR
ADVANCED PACKAGING (NCAP ADVANCED PACKAGING (NCAP
CHINA) CHINA)
Wuxi, China Wuxi, China
huanliu@ncap-cn.com feigeng@ncap-cn.com
Abstract—Three dimension (3D) packaging technology has
appeared for its incomparable performance, functionality and
integration density when Moor’s Law cannot meet the
requirement of high function after the integrated circuits (ICs)
have developed for decades. As the key technology to realize
3D packaging, the through-silicon via (TSV) by
interconnecting multiple active circuit layers on a single chip
makes the chip develop to the direction of the maximum 3D
stacking density and the shortest interconnection. Filling large
open rate and size TSVs without any voids defects by
electroplating has always been a great challenge for 3D
packaging for the sake of the fact that the pinch-off effect in
Damascus electroplating always exists, not to mention the high
cost and long cycle. In this paper, TSV with a large size (a
diameter of 30 um, a depth of 200 um) and high density (an
open rate of 0.66%) in a wafer had been filled by using bottom-
up copper electroplating technique. The influence of
electrochemical deposition (ECD) current density and time
used in the process on the filling result were investigated. A
supposed mechanism was also proposed to describe the
experiment result in filling TSVs with high density and large
size. The filling results were characterized by Scanning
Electronic Microscopy (SEM). And well filled results, as well as
the optimized current density and time were successfully
acquired after several experiments.
Keywords—TSVs; Copper electroplating; Current density
I. INTRODUCTION
Three-dimension (3D) integration has attracted
considerable interest in the integrated circuits packaging field
due to its incomparable advantages for high speed but small
size with high density packaging. The through-silicon via
(TSV) technology, including deep vias etching, sidewall
isolation, the formation of Cu seed layers and metal filling, is
the key technology to realize 3D integration. Among the
TSV technology, significant challenges remain in TSV
filling effected by the pinch-off in Damascus electroplating
[1]. On the other hand, from manufacture viewpoint the
challenge lies in how to reduce the high cost of TSV filling
(accounts for almost 41% of the total cost [2]).
For TSV filling, copper has been widely used as an
interconnection metal by using the method of electroplating
process for over a decade. To address the problem of pinch-
off effect, the bottom-up copper electroplating method
appeared as a promising approach. Currently, most
researches on TSV filling focus on how to optimize the
condition to achieve well-filled TSVs. The influence of
organic additives, i.e., suppressor, accelerator and leveler on
the plating profiles were intensively investigated [3-8]. The
above mentioned used in TSV filling are what we have
learned from copper Damascus electroplating, however, for
many cases it doesn’t work. The fundamental reason of the
hurdles can attribute to the broad range of the TSV
dimensions and density. In nowadays, TSV diameter varies
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Peng Sun*
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
ADVANCED PACKAGING (NCAP
CHINA)
Wuxi, China
pengsun@ncap-cn.com
from 1 to 200 um, and the high aspect ratio from 0.5 to 20
according to the application. The range of TSV density is
from less than 0.1% to 15%, but mostly distributed around 1%
[9]. Consequently, it is extremely difficult or impossible to
develop an approach to accommodate the entire via
dimensions, especially for high aspect ratio TSV. For a time,
the effect of current density has been studied as the critical
parameter of the electrochemical deposition parameters [10-
11]. It is confirmed that the smaller the current density is, the
better the electrochemical deposition via is [12]. However,
when comes to vias with large sizes the conventional theory
usually lead to the formation of voids.
In this study, the modified bottom-up electroplating
technique was adopted to fill the vias with a large size. And
defect-free filling results were acquired after several
experiments. Influences of current density on the filling
results were systematically investigated and researches on
improving the TSV filling efficiency were also performed.
The filling morphologies were characterized by Scanning
Electronic Microscopy (SEM).
II. EXPERIMENTAL
Vertical TSVs in 12-inch Si wafer were fabricated by
deep reactive ion etching process (DRIE). Silicon dioxide
layers were subsequently deposited on the sidewalls as
isolation by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition
(PECVD) and Ti/Cu were respectively deposited by sputter
process as barrier layer and seed layer. Then the modified
bottom-up electroplating technique was performed to fill the
large size vias. The electrochemical deposition was carried
out on Raider ECD single wafer platform of the Applied
Material. The cathode was a TSV wafer.
The electroplating bath is composed of copper (60 g/L),
H2SO4 (10 g/L), chloride (80 mg/L), 3-mercapto-1-
propanesulfonate (3 ml/L, accelerator), polyethylene glycol
(6 ml/L, suppressor), and Polyethylenimine alkyl salt (3 ml/L,
leveler).
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
During the TSV filling, a low current density (X ASD)
was used as a protection current and then gradually
increasing until it was supposed to be filled. The whole
electro deposition cost nearly X hours. The profiles were
detected by X-ray diffraction and the cross-sectional images
and the results were shown in Fig. 1. It can be clearly seen
that voids defect exist largely in the middle of the TSV vias
with thin copper layers depositing on the bottom.

Figure 1 the SEM cross section
According to previous reports [13], voids should be
prevented under a relatively low current density despite of
high time consumption. Consequently, prolonging the
deposition time under the protection current and lowering the
protection current were carried out attempting to improve the
filling results, although it didn’t work. Normally, low current
density leads to slow overall deposition rate so that the time
is sufficient for the copper ions diffusing to the bottom.
However, maybe the size of the TSV vias is large enough,
and it was too late to diffuse to the bottom under low electric
field. Voids then formed with thin copper-deposited layer on
the bottom, whereas the top of the vias pinch-off.
Figure 2 the SEM cross section after 2 hours
electrodeposition
In order to verify the opinion proposed above, a current
density (about twice than the former) was firstly used and
then gradually increasing as before. When the
electrochemical reaction was continued to 2 hours, the
current was removed. What we cared was whether much
more copper have been deposited on the bottom of the TSV
vias or not. From the Scanning Electronic Microscopy
images in Figure 2, it was found that nearly half of the vias
were filled well without pinch-off at the top. Adding the
deposition time, the vias were fully filled, showed in Figure
3. These results indicated the reasonable of our opinion. With
the increasing of current density, the consumption of
additives and copper ions accelerates as the deposition rate
increases. In view of molecular weight the accelerators as
well as the copper ions are easier to diffuse to the bottom
than the suppressors. These result in the replacement of
suppressors by accelerators and thus cause well filling on the
bottom. By prolonging the filling time the TSVs were
perfectly filled and it spent about X hours in total.
Figure 3 the SEM cross section after replating
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The well-filling result is a significant achievement but the
long time cost was too high for IC packages. It’s known that
the deposition rate, more accurately, especially the
availability of copper ions largely depends on the current
density. By gradually increasing the current density while
keep other factors the same, finally we found X ASD was the
limit current and when exceeding the current the defect
filling formed. Under the condition the filing time was
reduced to X hours. In our opinion, when the current density
is large enough, the copper ions were deposited prompt at the
top of the vias and then the vias pinch-off. The concentration
of additives should be changed to match large current. And
more experiments are under way.
CONCLUSION
TSV fillings without defects is critical important and
challenging in industrial manufacture. With the 3D
packaging technology development, TSV vias with different
size and aspect ratio appear to meet different requirements.
In this paper, vias (diameter 30 um, depth 200 um) were
fully filled and proposed a mechanism to describe the
experiment result in filling TSVs with high density and
large size. A large of researches still needs to be carried out
to illuminate the mechanism. It will be published in due
course.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The study was supported by the National Science and
Technology Major Project under contract No. 2018ZX02501.
The authors wish to thank the support.
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