Afm Studies of Surface Roughness of Borophosphosilicate Glass (BPSG) Films and Their Impact on Defect Detection Capability for Sub Micron Vlsi Technology

Abstract

ABSTRACTChemically vapor deposited borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG) has been widely used in microelectronic device fabrication as interlayer dielectric film due to its excellent planarization, gettering and flow properties. With device geometry reducing to sub micron levels, there is an increasingly greater emphasis on detection and elimination of sub micron defects particularly on deposited film. In this paper, we report on the evaluation and characterization of the surface roughness of BPSG films of various thicknesses and film compositions deposited on Si substrates using the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The effects of high temperature densification process on the surface roughness are presented. The defect detection capabilities of conventional laser-based particle counters with respect to the surface roughness of BPSG films are investigated.