Advances in Engineering Advances in Engineering features breaking research judged by Advances in Engineering advisory team to be of key importance in the Engineering field. Papers are selected from over 10,000 published each week from most peer reviewed journals.
Microelectronic Engineering, Volume 105, May 2013, Pages 119-123.
G. Vereecke, E. Kesters, Q.T. Le, M. Claes, M. Lux, H. Struyf, R. Carleer, P. Adriaensens.
Imec, Kapeldreef 75, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
U. Hasselt, IMO Division Chemistry, Agoralaan, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium.
Abstract
In semiconductor Back-End-of-Line (BEOL) processing, wet organic strippers have gained a renewed interest for removal of etched photoresist (PR) layers to replace plasma strip, which degrades porous low-kdielectrics. In this study we show how the characterization of 193-nm PR degradation by etch plasmas led to the development of an environment friendly wet strip using aqueous ozone solutions. Characterization of post-etch PR films have shown that degradation was similar to that of poly(methyl acrylate/methacrylate) (PMA/PMMA) by UV light, with formation of single and conjugated CC bonds in PR chains. However little removal was obtained with O3/H2O strips without an organic solvent rinse, indicating reactions fragments were too long for a complete dissolution in water. In turn known effects of UV on PMA/PMMA were used to develop an optimized UV pre-treatment enabling a fully aqueous O3 strip. This process was shown to efficiently remove PR in a dual damascene application. Also we shortly discuss the impact of materials selection on process efficiency, improvement in low-k compatibility and transfer to a production environment.
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