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Thin Film Deposition Techniques in Microelectronics

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Abstract

In building a large integration of circuits on a semiconductor chip, a composite of thin film materials with extremely small dimensions is used. For example, metallic films serve as contacts, diffusion barriers, adhesion layers and interconnections, while insulating films are used as passivation layers and interlayer dielectrics. All of these materials can be deposited by a wide variety of techniques, and most films can be formed by more than one method. This paper briefly reviews physical and chemical vapor deposition techniques for thin film preparation in semiconductor manufacture. The particular choice of the deposition technique for a given application is determined by the properties of the films desired, the cost or production rate available from the process, temperature limitations of the substrates, uniformity or consistency of the process and its compatibility with preceding and subsequent processing steps. In some cases, thin films deposited in one form are converted to a different form or material in a subsequent processing step, as in the case of silicide formation. A comparison survey of these techniques for the preparation of silicide films for metallization and dielectric films for passivation is also given.

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  1. F. O. Sequeda
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F.O. Sequeda received his Ph.D. in materials science at the University of Illinois. He is currently Manager at the Materials Technology Department, Central Scientific Services of the IBM Research Lab in San Jose, California

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Sequeda, F.O. Thin Film Deposition Techniques in Microelectronics. JOM 38, 55–65 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03257928

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