Low-temperature chemical vapor deposition processes and dielectrics for microelectronic circuit manufacturing at IBM

Significant progress has been made over the past decade in low-temperature plasma-enhanced and thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The progress has occurred in response to the high demands placed on the insulators of multilevel microelectronic circuits because of the continuing reduction in circuit dimensions. High-aspect-ratio gap filling is foremost among these demands, which also include lower processing temperatures and improved dielectric planarization. This paper reviews the history of interlevel and intermetal dielectrics used in microelectronic circuit manufacturing at IBM and the current status of processes used in IBM manufacturing and development lines, and describes the challenges for future memory and logic chip applications.