Failure mechanism of a multilayer (TiN/Al/TiN) diffusion barrier between copper and silicon

The improvement of the diffusion barrier performance for Cu metallization, by inserting a thin Al layer between two TiN layers, has been clearly demonstrated and reported by us. The key idea behind our scheme is stuffing of grain boundaries of columnar TiN films by Al2O3. It has been also found that the barrier property is at its best when the Al thickness is 1 nm, but above this value, the barrier performance degrades drastically when the upper TiN film is not preannealed. In this study, why the barrier breaks down at above 1 nm of Al interlayer thickness is investigated. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy, scanning transmission electron microscopy, and energy dispersive spectroscopy analyses revealed that the fast diffusion of Cu in the presence of the free Al is the main reason for the failure of the present diffusion barrier scheme. These results are discussed on the basis of the differences between the movements of Al and Cu through TiN film, and the differences between the solid solubilities of Al in Cu and in Si. Our results show that both Al interlayer thickness and the oxygen content in TiN film should be properly controlled to take full advantage of the present multilayer diffusion barrier scheme. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.