Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Francis Wang

Shih-Chi Lin

Wen-Long Lee

Ying-Lang Wang

Hsi-Kuei Cheng

Szu-An Wu

Sez-An Wu

Yali Tai

A method for treating a copper surface of a semiconductor device provides exposing the copper surface to a citric acid solution after the surface is formed using CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) or other methods. The citric acid treatment may take place during a cleaning operation that takes place in a wafer scrubber, or subsequent to such an operation. The citric acid treatment removes copper oxides that form on copper surfaces exposed to the environment and prevents hillock formation during subsequent high temperature operations. The copper surface is then annealed and the annealing followed by an NHplasma treatment which again removes any copper oxides that may be present. The NHplasma operation roughens exposed surfaces improving the adhesion of subsequently-formed films such as a dielectric film preferably formed in-situ with the NHplasma treatment. The subsequently-formed film is formed over an oxide-free, hillock-free copper surface.

Hillock reduction in copper films

A method of removing residual contamination including metal nitride particles from semiconductor wafer surfaces including the steps of: providing at least one semiconductor wafer with metal nitride particles adhering to the at least one semiconductor wafer surface thereto; subjecting the at least one semiconductor wafer to at least one mechanical brushing process while a cleaning solution including a carboxylic acid is supplied to at least one semiconductor wafer surface; and, subjecting the at least one semiconductor wafer to an a sonic cleaning process including the carboxylic acid cleaning solution.

Semiconductor wafer cleaning method to remove residual contamination including metal nitride particles

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Zhubei, Taiwan

Francis Wang