Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Phosphosilicate glass reflow to improve step coverage of metallizations in integrated circuits is usualy made by a high temperature heat treatment. A new technique is proposed to achieve this annealing by a transient localized heating with a tunable CW CO2 laser. A selective coupling of the laser power is obtained by choosing a 9.25 μm wavelength which matches the Si-O absorption band at 1100 cm−1. Focusing and scanning the laser beam makes the P-glass flow without excessive substrate heating.