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Measurement of Toughness for Sin Films on Silicon Using Channel Cracking Technique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

Qing Ma ,
Quan Tran ,
Brad Sun ,
Safaa El-Mansy ,
Julie Sun  and
Harry Fujimoto
Qing Ma
Affiliation:
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Quan Tran
Affiliation:
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Brad Sun
Affiliation:
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Safaa El-Mansy
Affiliation:
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Julie Sun
Affiliation:
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Harry Fujimoto
Affiliation:
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
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Abstract

Silicon nitride thin films used for transistor spacer are usually under large tensile residual stresses. When a film is thick enough, it can crack by channel cracking mechanism. The toughness of these films, used in models for failure criteria, can be obtained by determining the critical thickness for channel cracking of blanket films with known residual stresses. However, depositing films of a range of different thickness to determine the critical thickness is tedious, and this process also introduces risks of producing particles in the deposition chamber when the film exceeds the critical thickness. An alternative technique is to deposit films of thickness below critical thickness and then to apply additional tensile stresses to the film by bending the substrate. A critical film stress can be determined for channel cracking from which the film toughness is obtained. This paper describes the experiments performed for a new SiN film and presents the results.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 563: Symposium M – Materials Reliability in Microelectronics IX , 1999 , 285
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1999

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References

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