Impact of metal deposition process upon reliability of dual-damascene copper interconnects

In this paper, we discuss the effect of adhesion strength between TaN/Ta barrier and copper (Cu) upon the reliability of dual-damascene Cu interconnects as well as the effect of stepcoverage. The ionized metal bias sputtering (IMBS) method was applied to TaN/Ta barrier and Cu seed formation of 0.13 /spl mu/m-node dual-damascene Cu interconnects and the electromigration and stress migration characteristics were successfully improved.