Imec Vzw

Patrick Verdonck

Eric Beyne

Gerald Beyer

Soon-Wook Kim

Gerald Peter Beyer

Lan Peng

Robert Miller

The disclosed technology generally relates to semiconductor wafer bonding, and more particularly to direct bonding by contacting surfaces of the semiconductor wafers. In one aspect, a method for bonding a first semiconductor substrate to a second semiconductor substrate by direct bonding is described. The substrates are both provided on their contact surfaces with a dielectric layer, followed by a CMP step for reducing the roughness of the dielectric layer. Then a layer of SiCN is deposited onto the dielectric layer, followed by a CMP step which reduces the roughness of the SiCN layer to the order of 1 tenth of a nanometer. Then the substrates are subjected to a pre-bond annealing step and then bonded by direct bonding, possibly preceded by one or more pre-treatments of the contact surfaces, and followed by a post-bond annealing step, at a temperature of less than or equal to 250&#xb0; C. It has been found that the bond strength is excellent, even at the above named annealing temperatures, which are lower than presently known in the art.

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Sterrebeek, Belgium

Patrick Verdonck