Ebara Corporation

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Naoaki Ogure

Hiroaki Inoue

Akihisa Hongo

Kuniaki Horie

Manabu Tsujimura

Kenichi Suzuki

Satoshi Sendai

Atsushi Chono

Koji Mishima

Yukio Ikeda

Takao Kato

Hiroshi Nagasawa

Mizuki Nagai

Akira Fukunaga

Yuji Araki

Hirokazu Ezawa

Fumio Kuriyama

Masahiro Miyata

Yukio Fukunaga

Norio Kimura

Hiroyuki Ueyama

Junitsu Yamakawa

Hiroshi Nagasaka

Momoko Kakutani

Mitsunao Shibasaki

Takeyuki Ohdaira

Makoto Kubota

Tohru Satake

Takeshi Murakami

Yutaka Wada

Tsutomu Nakada

Katsumi Sasaki

Masahiro Izutsu

Kiwamu Tsukamoto

Yoichi Kanemitsu

Hidenao Suzuki

Masayuki Kumekawa

Matsuho Miyasaka

Masahito Abe

Ryoichi Kimizuka

Kenya Tomioka

Shinji Kajita

Tetsuma Ikegami

Katsumi Tsuda

Megumi Maruyama

Kenichi Sasabe

Shuichi Okuyama

Kunio Tateishi

Yuichi Akai

Takashi Yoda

Kazuyoshi Terashima

Takeyuki Odaira

Toru Matanabe

Syotaro Mizobuchi

Katsuhiro Ichikawa

Yusuke Chikamori

A composite nanoparticle makes it possible to significantly lower the temperature to separate an organic substance from a core and uniformly sinter the cores, and can be applied to bonding that replaces soldering. The composite nanoparticle includes a metal component as a core, and an organic substance surrounding the metal component and bonded to it by physical adsorption. The composite nanoparticles can be produced by allowing an inorganic metal salt and an organic material to coexist, and heating the inorganic metal salt and the organic material to a predetermined temperature and holding them at the temperature for a predetermined time so that the inorganic metal salt is decomposed to produce metal nanoparticles. Thus, an organic substance is bonded to the metal nanoparticles by physical adsorption without forming an organometallic compound through a reaction between the metal nanoparticles and the organic substance.

Composite nanoparticles method for producing the same

A method and apparatus plate a substrate to form wiring by efficiently filling a fine recess formed in a semiconductor substrate with plating metal without a void or contamination. The plating of the substrate to fill a wiring recess formed in the semiconductor substrate with plating metal includes performing an electroless plating process of forming an initial layer on the substrate, and performing an electrolytic plating process of filling the wiring recess with the plating metal, while the initial layer serves as a feeding layer.

Substrate plating method and apparatus

The present invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for forming a thin metal film of copper, silver, or the like on a surface of a semiconductor or another substrate. A method of forming a thin metal film, comprises preparing a dispersed liquid having a metal-containing organic compound dispersed in a predetermined solvent, coating the dispersed liquid on a surface of a substrate and evaporating the solvent to form a coating layer, and applying an energy beam to the coating layer to decompose away an organic substance contained in the coating layer in an area irradiated with the energy beam and bond metal contained in the coating layer.According to the present invention, it is possible to form a thin metal film of good quality efficiently and stably. The thin metal film used as metal interconnects in highly integrated semiconductor circuits contributes to the progress of a process of fabricating semiconductor devices.

Method and apparatus for forming thin film of metal

A substrate plating apparatus forms an interconnection layer on an interconnection region composed of a fine groove and/or a fine hole defined in a substrate. The substrate plating apparatus includes a plating unit for forming a plated layer on a surface of the substrate including the interconnection region, a chemical mechanical polishing unit for chemically mechanically polishing the substrate to remove the plated layer from the surface of the substrate leaving a portion of the plated layer in the interconnection region, a cleaning unit for cleaning the substrate after the plated layer is formed or the substrate is chemically mechanically polished, a drying unit for drying the substrate after the substrate is cleaned, and a substrate transfer unit for transferring the substrate to and from each of the first plating unit, the first chemical mechanical polishing unit, the cleaning unit, and the drying unit. The first plating unit, the first chemical mechanical polishing unit, the cleaning unit, the drying unit, and the substrate transfer unit are combined into a unitary arrangement.

Substrate plating apparatus

There is provided a method of performing a surface treatment, such as coating, denaturation, modification and etching, on a surface of a substrate. The method comprises the steps of bringing a surface treatment gas into contact with a surface of a substrate, and irradiating the surface of the substrate with a fast particle beam to enhance an activity of the surface and/or the surface treatment gas, thereby facilitating a reaction between the surface and the gas. The fast particle beam may be selected from a group consisting of an electron beam, a charged particle beam, an atomic beam and molecular beam. For example, during a coating operation, chemical deposition of predetermined component elements of the gas onto the surface is effected and a predetermined portion of the surface of the substrate is irradiated with a particle beam to form a coating layer on the predetermined portion.

Coating, modification and etching of substrate surface with particle beam irradiation of the same

The present invention relates to a substrate plating apparatus for plating a substrate in a plating bath containing plating solution. An insoluble anode is disposed in the plating bath opposite the substrate. The substrate plating apparatus comprises a circulating vessel or dummy vessel provided separate from the plating bath, with a soluble anode and a cathode disposed in the circulating vessel or dummy vessel. An anion exchange film or selective cation exchange film is disposed between the anode and cathode and isolates the same, wherein metal ions are generated in the circulating vessel or dummy vessel by flowing current between the soluble anode and the cathode therein, and the generated metal ions are supplied to the plating bath. The substrate plating apparatus can also comprise an ion exchange film or neutral porous diaphragm disposed between the substrate and anode in the plating bath, wherein the ion exchange film or neutral porous diaphragm divides the plating bath into a substrate region and an anode region.

Substrate plating apparatus and method

Embedded interconnections of copper are formed by forming an insulating layer, forming embedded interconnections of copper in the insulating layer, making an exposed upper surface of the insulating layer and an exposed surface of the embedded interconnections of copper coplanar according to chemical mechanical polishing, and forming a protective silver film on the exposed surface of the embedded interconnections of copper. These steps are repeated on the existing insulating layer thereby to produce multiple layers of embedded interconnections of copper. The exposed surface of the embedded interconnections of copper is plated with silver according to immersion plating.

Method of forming embedded copper interconnections and embedded copper interconnection structure

The present invention relates particularly to a method of and an apparatus for forming a fine interconnection in a highly integrated circuit formed on a semiconductor substrate. The method has the steps of preparing a substrate having fine recesses formed in a surface thereof, dispersing ultrafine particles made at least partly of a metal in a predetermined solvent, producing an ultrafine particle dispersed liquid, supplying the ultrafine particle dispersed liquid to the fine recesses of the substrate, heating the substrate to melt and bond the metal, and chemical mechanical polishing the surface of the substrate to remove an excessively attached metal therefrom. According to the present invention, it is possible to stably deposit an interconnection metal of good quality using an inexpensive material.

Method of and apparatus for forming interconnection

The present invention relates to a plating method for use in forming a liner for plating in a conductor-embedding fine recess that is defined in a surface of a semiconductor substrate, and an interconnection forming method for use in forming an interconnection using such a liner, and characterized by reducing an organic metal compound in a nonaqueous solvent to plate a surface of a base material with metal. The plating method can easily be used similarly to an aqueous electroless plating process and is capable of forming a defect-free sound metal plated layer on the surface of a substrate which has a fine recess or the like for embedding a conductor therein, and the interconnection forming method is capable of forming an embedded interconnection that comprises a defect-free sound electric conductor in a fine recess.

Plating method, interconnection forming method, and apparatus for carrying out those methods

A substrate is coated with a conductive layer, which comprises a conductive layer of bonded ultrafine metal particles formed on the top surface thereof. The ultrafine metal particles have a diameter of 1-20 nm, and the substrate is of a flexible high polymer material. Since the conductive layer is formed by bonded layer of the ultrafine metal particles, an extremely thin layer having high conductivity can be formed. This structure enables the formation of a flexible printed circuit board with high-density interconnects or a transparent conductive film provided with both transparency and conductivity. Conventional vacuum equipments and complicated processes are not necessary for forming the conductive layer on the substrate.

Substrate coated with a conductive layer and manufacturing method thereof

A method and apparatus can provide surface protection of substrates such as semiconductor wafers while they are being transported from one unit process to another unit process. The method comprises coating at least a part of a surface of the substrate with a coagulated film such as an ice film.

Method and apparatus for protection of substrate surface

A substrate such as a semiconductor wafer is plated to fill a metal such as copper (Cu) or the like in interconnection grooves defined in the substrate. An apparatus for plating such a substrate has a plating chamber for holding a plating solution, the plating chamber housing an anode that is immersible in the plating solution held by the plating chamber. A plating solution ejector pipe produces an upward jet of plating solution from a plating solution supplied to the plating chamber from an external source, and a substrate holder removably holds a substrate and positions the substrate such that a surface to be plated of the substrate is held in contact with the jet of plating solution. The plating chamber has a plating solution outlet defined in a bottom thereof for discharging a portion of the supplied plating solution via through-holes defined in the anode and/or around the anode out of the plating chamber.

Method and apparatus for plating substrate and plating facility

A substrate plating apparatus forms a plating layer on the surface of a substrate and stores the substrate until the next process in a way that the substrate is not exposed to the atmosphere. The substrate plating apparatus is not only capable of introducing semiconductor wafers continuously one by one into the plating apparatus without loading the wafers into cassettes, but is also capable of preventing particle contamination and the formation of oxidized film on the surface of the wafers, thus reducing the number of process and reducing the installation area required for the apparatus. The substrate plating apparatus includes a plating process section ( ) for plating a substrate, a washing process section ( ) for washing the substrate after the plating process, and a storage vessel ( ) containing a storing solution in which the substrate is immersed after having been plated and washed. A substrate conveyor is provided in the substrate plating apparatus for loading substrates into the substrate plating apparatus and discharging substrates out of the substrate plating apparatus, or for performing at least one of the loading or discharging operations, such that the substrates are loaded into the substrate plating apparatus one at a time, plated in the plating process section, washed in the washing process section, and subsequently discharged one at a time from the substrate plating apparatus.

A substrate is coated with a conductive layer, which comprises a conductive layer of bonded ultrafine metal particles formed on the top surface thereof. The ultra fine metal particles have a diameter of 1-20 nm, and the substrate is of a flexible high polymer material. Since the conductive layer is formed by bonded layer of the ultrafine metal particles, an extremely thin layer having high conductivity can be formed. This structure enables the formation of a flexible printed circuit board with high-density interconnects or a transparent conductive film provided with both transparency and conductivity. Conventional vacuum equipments and complicated processes are not necessary for forming the conductive layer on the substrate.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for forming interconnects on a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer by filling a conductive material such as copper (Cu) in fine recesses formed in a surface of the substrate. A method for forming interconnects comprises providing a substrate and a target composed of a conductive material in confrontation with each other in a chamber, introducing a sputtering gas into the chamber while a high voltage is applied between the substrate and the target to cause the sputtering gas to collide with the target, and depositing particles of the conductive material emitted from the target on the surface of the substrate to form a thin film, while sputter-etching the thin film by reflection sputtering gas molecules reflected from the target and having high energy.

High energy sputtering method for forming interconnects

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Naoaki Ogure