Introduction to nano-scale protective thin films and their applications in semiconductor manufacturing, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary aspect and technological quality
Conventional demands for development in semiconductor industry are changing as the Moore’s Law (stating that transistor density on integrated circuits doubles about every two years) approaching to its limits. Continuous decrease in the size of the transistors is coming close to atomic levels creating a fundamental barrier for further process developments as the semiconductor manufacturing is established today (M. Dubash, Techworld.com, April 2005). Development needs are not solely based on device scaling anymore. Rapid introduction and conceptualization of new automotive, medical and implantable devices challenge the needs to improve device performance in addition to cost reduction zero defectivity and enhanced reliability (J. Ruzyllo, Interface, V.15, No.4, 2006). Although mainstream semiconductor engineering could involve tradeoffs between performance and reliability, the new applications face assessing the impact of new materials, dealing with limited margins, advances in processing, materials science, chemistry, and more rigorous customer expectations (C.Henderson, Semitracs Inc., 2008). Introduction of copper as an interconnect material, the growing number of interconnect levels, use of low-k dielectrics as inter-metal insulators, high-k materials for ferroelectric memory applications, broad acceptance of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) in mainstream silicon manufacturing and new packaging requirements exemplify this trend. more…