Use of Nanoindentation to Characterise the Plasma Damage Region in Low-k Dielectric Films

The thermo-mechanical robustness of interconnect structures is a key reliability concern for integrated circuits. The introduction of new low dielectric constant (low-k) materials with deteriorated mechanical strength (i.e., Young Modulus decreases exponentially with film porosity, which is needed to lower the k value of the dielectric materials) to meet the RC delay goals increase the risk of mechanical adhesive and/or cohesive failure of the device during packaging or even in service. Therefore, the mechanical properties of low-k dielectrics must be studied in detail. This is made very challenging by the fact that they have submicron thickness and that they often display a graded structure due to the damage introduced by exposure to different plasmas during processing. In this context, we demonstrate that nanoindentation is very well suited to study this type of materials. We will show how conventional depth sensing nanoindentation is of limited value to characterise the extent of the plasma induced damage because this extents just a few tens of nanometres and the graded structure can not be sampled with enough depth resolution. However, nanoindentation in modulus mapping mode can achieve enough depth resolution to characterise such nanoscale graded structures. In this technique, the electrostatic force acting on the indenter tip is sinusoidally modulated, while contact mode imaging at a very small force is performed. The dynamical response is then analyzed to extract the local indentation modulus of the sample at each pixel. By using this technique, we have depth profiled the mechanical properties of the plasma induced damage region of OSG films exposed to different plasmas, by acquiring modulus maps as a function of thickness removed in wear experiments. The results correlate well with the density depth profiles derived from X-Ray Reflectivity measurements.