The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 02, 1997
Filed:
Dec. 22, 1994
Jick M Yu, Beaverton, OR (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A conductor fill technique uses an intermetallic compound wetting layer to allow a subsequent conductive material to be reflowed with minimized interaction between the conductive layer and the wetting layer. As one example, a wetting layer including TiAl or TiAl.sub.3 may be formed over a semiconductor wafer and in an opening of the wafer. A conductive layer including aluminum (Al) may then be deposited and reflowed over the wafer to fill the opening in forming a contact, via, or interconnect line, for example, with minimized interaction between the aluminum (Al) of the conductive layer and the wetting layer. Any reduction in conductance of the material filled in the opening may be minimized as the formation of any new intermetallic TiAl.sub.3 compounds that would otherwise increase the resistance of the material filled in the opening is minimized. Relatively denser and/or smaller-sized semiconductor devices may be fabricated with conductors that benefit from the relatively lower resistance of aluminum (Al) as aluminum (Al) may be used to fill relatively smaller openings with minimized reduction in conductance.