Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) has emerged as a critical process step for achieving angstrom-level uniformity in advanced integrated circuit manufacturing and has ultimately led to the extension of Moore’s Law. The CMP process can cause various defects, and they can be classified as mechanical (i.e., scratching), chemical (i.e., corrosion), or physiochemical (i.e., adsorbed contaminants) according to the mechanism of formation. Traditionally, a contact cleaning method involving a poly-vinyl alcohol (PVA) brush is used to transfer cleaning chemistry to the Cu substrate as well as provide the necessary mechanical energy for defect removal. While this process is effective in contaminant removal its reliance on shear forces can induce secondary defect modes, such as scratching. Current cleaning chemistries typically utilize an aggressive chemically corrosive mechanism to remove organic residues (i.e., BTA) and can result in additional induced defectivity. This work employs a suite of dynamic electrochemical techniques (i.e., Tafel Analysis and Open Circuit Potential Analysis (OCP)) that mimic the cleaning process to interrogate the interfacial mechanisms. Results via Tafel analysis show that suppression of current in the anodic region is alleviated upon the implementation of finely tuned cleaning chemistries. Furthermore, the increase in corrosion rates (i.e., I<sub>corr </sub>value) extrapolated from Tafel plots track tandemly with anodic region suppression. Lastly, tracking the OCP over time utilizing a p-CMP simulated approach has shown that initiation of direct contact will remove passivating organic films and the recovery is minimal upon the abatement of pressure in the presence of the previously mentioned cleaning chemistries.

Dynamic electrochemical investigation of interfacial reactions relevant to cu post- Chemical Mechanical Planarization (p-CMP) cleaning

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ACS Fall 2022

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