Applied Materials, Inc.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

John W Lam

Roey Shaviv

Ismail T Emesh

Christian Rene Bonhote

Vladimir Nikitin

Wen-Chien David Hsiao

Edward Hin Pong Lee

Ian Robson McFadyen

Malika Dothresa Carter

David A Dudek

Heather K DeSimone

Matthew W Last

Timothy Bochman

A wafer electroplating system has at least one first electroplating chamber having a first electrolyte containing cobalt ions, and is adapted to electroplate a cobalt film onto a wafer at a first deposition rate. A second electroplating chamber has a second electrolyte containing cobalt ions, and is adapted to electroplate a cobalt film onto the wafer at a second deposition rate faster than the first deposition rate. The first and second electroplating chambers are within an enclosure of a processing system. A robot moves a wafer among the first and second electroplating chambers.

Forming cobalt interconnections on a substrate

An electrochemical process for applying a conductive film onto a substrate having a seed layer includes placing the substrate into contact with an electrochemical plating bath containing cobalt or nickel, with the plating bath having pH of 4.0 to 9.0. Electric current is conducted through the bath to the substrate. The cobalt or nickel ions in the bath deposit onto the seed layer. The plating bath may contain cobalt chloride and glycine. The electric current may range from 1-50 milli-ampere per square cm. After completion of the electrochemical process, the substrate may be removed from the plating bath, rinsed and dried, and then annealed at a temperature of 200 to 400 C to improve the material properties and reduce seam line defects. The plating and anneal process may be performed through multiple cycles.

Electrochemical plating methods

A magnetic read/write head is produced with an insert layer between the substrate and the magnetic transducer. The insert layer has a lower coefficient of thermal expansion than the substrate, which reduces the temperature pole tip recession (T-PTR) of the head because the insert layer is an intervening layer between the substrate and magnetic transducer. The insert layer is produced by plating, e.g., an Invar layer over the substrate prior to fabricating the magnetic transducer. The Invar layer is annealed and the structure planarized prior to depositing a non-magnetic gap layer followed by the fabrication of the magnetic transducer.

Method of forming a magnetic read/write head

An electroplated film is deposited over a substrate with a plating frame pattern that includes a plating field defined by a plurality of individual features. By dividing the plating field into a plurality of individual features, the delamination force at any location on the plating field is greatly reduced. Thus, a film with a large stress, such as a high moment film, may be plated to a greater thickness than is possible with conventionally plated films.

Stress relief for electroplated films

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

John W Lam