Crystallinity Dependence of Grain and Grain Boundary Strength of a Bicrystal Structure of Copper

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Yiqing Fan ◽  
Yifan Luo
Keyword(s):  
Thin Films ◽  
Grain Boundary ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Defect Density ◽  
Volume Ratio ◽  
Md Simulations ◽  
Atomic Diffusion ◽  
Strength And Deformation ◽  
Electroplated Copper ◽  
Boundary Strength

Abstract Electroplated copper thin films often contain porous grain boundaries and the volume ratio of porous grain boundaries in the copper thin films is much larger than that in bulk copper. Thus, the lifetime of the interconnection components fabricated by electroplating is strongly dominated by the strength of grain boundaries because final fracture caused by the acceleration of atomic diffusion during electromigration (EM) occurs at grain boundaries in polycrystalline interconnections. It is important, therefore, to quantitatively evaluate the grain boundary strength of electroplated copper films for estimating the lifetime of the interconnection in order to assure the product reliability. In this study, relationship between the strength and crystallinity of electroplated copper thin films was investigated experimentally and theoretically. In order to investigate the relationship between the strength and grain boundary quality, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were applied to analyze the deformation behavior of a bicrystal sample and its strength. The variation of the strength and deformation property were attributed to the higher defect density around grain boundaries.

Improvement of the Long-Term Reliability of Interconnection by Controlling the Crystallinity of Grain Boundaries

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahiro Nakanishi ◽  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Hideo Miura
Keyword(s):  
Thin Films ◽  
Grain Boundary ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Ion Beam ◽  
Diffusion Constant ◽  
Diffraction Method ◽  
Electron Back Scatter Diffraction ◽  
Test Method ◽  
Electroplated Copper

Electroplated copper thin films have started to be employed as the interconnection material in TSV structures of 3D semiconductor modules because of its low electric resistivity and high thermal conductivity. However, electrical and mechanical properties of electroplated copper thin-films have been found to vary drastically depending on their microtexture. In particular, the crystallographic quality (crystallinity) of grain boundaries in the electroplated copper thin-films plays an important role on the variations of these properties and the long-term reliability of the interconnections. This is because grain boundaries are the area where the atomic alignment of mateerials is disordered and thus, various defects such as vacancies, dislocations, impurities, and strain easily concentrate around them. This disorder of the atomic alignment causes the increase in the electrical resistivity, diffusion constant along the grain boundaries, and the brittleness of the material. Therefore, it is very important to evaluate the characteristics of a grain boundary quantitatively in order to control and assure the properties of the electroplated copper thin films. In this study, a novel tensile test method that can measure the strength of a grain boundary has been developed by using a focused ion beam system. In order to investigate the effect of the crystallinity of grain boundaries on their strength, an electron back-scatter diffraction method (EBSD) was employed for the quantitative characterization of grain boundaries. It was confirmed that the strength of grain boundaries with low crystallinity was much lower than that with high crystallinity.

Improvement of Thermal Conductivity of Electroplated Copper Thin-Film Interconnections by Controlling Their Micro Texture

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pornvitoo Rittinon ◽  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Hideo Miura
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Thin Films ◽  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Diffraction Method ◽  
Electron Back Scatter Diffraction ◽  
High Resistivity ◽  
Copper Thin Film ◽  
Electroplated Copper ◽  
The Relationship

Copper thin films are indispensable for the interconnections in the advanced electronic products, such as TSV (Trough Silicon Via), fine bumps, and thin-film interconnections in various devices and interposers. However, it has been reported that both electrical and mechanical properties of the films vary drastically comparing with those of conventional bulk copper. The main reason for the variation can be attributed to the fluctuation of the crystallinity of grain boundaries in the films. Porous or sparse grain boundaries show very high resistivity and brittle fracture characteristic in the films. Thus, the thermal conductivity of the electroplated copper thin films should be varied drastically depending on their micro texture based on the Wiedemann-Franz’s law. Since the copper interconnections are used not only for the electrical conduction but also for the thermal conduction, it is very important to quantitatively evaluate the crystallinity of the polycrystalline thin-film materials and clarify the relationship between the crystallinity and thermal properties of the films. The crystallinity of the interconnections were quantitatively evaluated using an electron back-scatter diffraction method. It was found that the porous grain boundaries which contain a significant amount of vacancies increase the local electrical resistance in the interconnections, and thus, cause the local high Joule heating. Such porous grain boundaries can be eliminated by control the crystallinity of the seed layer material on which the electroplated copper thin film is electroplated.

Defects in Superconductor thin Films

1994 ◽  
Vol 357 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Nandedkar ◽  
L. Ganapathi
Keyword(s):  
Thin Films ◽  
Grain Boundary ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
Superconductor Thin Films

AbstractComputer aided simulations were used to investigate various grain boundary configurations in superconducting (YBa2Cu3O7) thin films. Four angles for tilt grain boundaries were simulated (12.45°, 53.5°, 66.4°, and 74.6°). Energies of unrelaxed configurations were calculated.

Constrained Grain Boundary Diffusion In Thin Copper Films

2004 ◽  
Vol 821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus J. Buehler ◽  
Alexander Hartmaier ◽  
Huajian Gao
Keyword(s):  
Thin Films ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Grain Boundary ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Boundary Diffusion ◽  
Grain Boundary Diffusion ◽  
Atomic Scale ◽  
Diffusional Creep ◽  
Copper Films ◽  
And Diffusion

AbstractIn a recent study of diffusional creep in polycrystalline thin films deposited on substrates, we have discovered a new class of defects called the grain boundary diffusion wedges (Gao et al., Acta Mat. 47, pp. 2865-2878, 1999). These diffusion wedges are formed by stress driven mass transport between the free surface of the film and the grain boundaries during the process of substrate-constrained grain boundary diffusion. The mathematical modeling involves solution of integro-differential equations representing a strong coupling between elasticity and diffusion. The solution can be decomposed into diffusional eigenmodes reminiscent of crack-like opening displacement along the grain boundary which leads to a singular stress field at the root of the grain boundary. We find that the theoretical analysis successfully explains the difference between the mechanical behaviors of passivated and unpassivated copper films during thermal cycling on a silicon substrate. An important implication of our theoretical analysis is that dislocations with Burgers vector parallel to the interface can be nucleated at the root of the grain boundary. This is a new dislocation mechanism in thin films which contrasts to the well known Mathews-Freund-Nix mechanism of threading dislocation propagation. Recent TEM experiments at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research have shown that, while threading dislocations dominate in passivated metal films, parallel glide dislocations begin to dominate in unpassivated copper films with thickness below 400 nm. This is consistent with our theoretical predictions. We have developed large scale molecular dynamics simulations of grain boundary diffusion wedges to clarify the nucleation mechanisms of parallel glide in thin films. Such atomic scale simulations of thin film diffusion not only show results which are consistent with both continuum theoretical and experimental studies, but also revealed the atomic processes of dislocation nucleation, climb, glide and storage in grain boundaries. The study should have far reaching implications for modeling deformation and diffusion in micro- and nanostructured materials.

Crystallinity Control of Electroplated Interconnections for Improving Their Stability and Lifetime

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiatong Liu ◽  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Hideo Miura
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Thin Films ◽  
Residual Stress ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Lattice Mismatch ◽  
Bulk Material ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Mechanical Fracture ◽  
Copper Thin Film ◽  
Electroplated Copper

In a three-dimensional (3D) packaging systems, the interconnections which penetrate stacked silicon chips have been employed. Such interconnection structure is called TSV (Through Silicon Via) structure, and the via is recently filled by electroplated copper thin film. The electroplated copper thin films often consist of fine columnar grains and porous grain boundaries with high density of defects which don’t appear in conventional bulk material. This unique micro texture has been found to cause the wide variation of physical and chemical properties of this material. In the TSV structure, the shrinkage of the copper thin film caused by thermal deformation and recrystallization of the unique texture during high-temperature annealing is strictly constrained by surrounding rigid Si and thus, high tensile residual stress remains in the thin film after thermal annealing. High residual stress should give rise to mechanical fracture of the interconnections and the shift of electronic function of thin film devices formed in Si. Therefore, the residual stress in the interconnections should be minimized by controlling the appearance of the porous boundaries during electroplating for assuring the longterm reliability of the interconnections. As the lattice mismatch between Cu and its barrier film (Ta) is as larger as 18%, which is the main reason for the fine columnar structures and porous grain boundaries, it is necessary to control the underlayer crystallinity to improve the crystallinity of electroplated copper thin films. In this study, the effective method for controlling the crystallinity of the underlayer was investigated by improving the atomic configuration in the electroplated copper thin film. The result showed that by controlling the crystallinity of underlayer, crystallinity of electroplated copper thin films can be improved, the mechanical properties of thin films was improved and thus, stability and lifetime of electroplated copper interconnections can be improved.

Micro Texture Dependence of Both the Mechanical and Electrical Properties of Electroplated Copper Thin Films Used for Interconnection

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naokazu Murata ◽  
Naoki Saito ◽  
Kinji Tamakawa ◽  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Hideo Miura
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Thin Films ◽  
Electrical Properties ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Fracture Mode ◽  
The Other ◽  
Copper Films ◽  
Mechanical And Electrical Properties ◽  
Electroplated Copper

Both mechanical and electrical properties of electroplated copper thin films were investigated experimentally with respect to changes in their micro texture. Clear recrystallization was observed after the annealing even at low temperature of about 150°C. The fracture strain of the film annealed at 400°C increased from the initial value of about 3% to 15%, and at the same time, the yield stress of the annealed film decreased from about 270 MPa to 90 MPa. In addition, it was found that there were two fatigue fracture modes in the film annealed at the temperatures lower than 200°C. One was a typical ductile fracture mode with plastic deformation and the other was brittle one. When the brittle fracture occurred, the crack propagated along weak or porous grain boundaries which remained in the film after electroplating. The brittle fracture mode disappeared after the annealing at 400°C. These results clearly indicated that the mechanical properties of electroplated copper thin films vary drastically depending on their micro texture. Next, the electrical reliability of electroplated copper thin film interconnections was discussed. The interconnections used for electromigration (EM) tests were made by damascene process. The width of the interconnections was varied from 1 μm to 10 μm. An abrupt fracture mode due to local fusion appeared in the as-electroplated films within a few hours during the test. Since the fracture rate increased linearly with the increase of square of the applied current density, this fracture mode was dominated by local Joule heating. It seemed that the local resistance of the film increased due to the porous grain boundaries and thus, the local temperature around the porous grain boundaries increased drastically. On the other hand, the life of the interconnections annealed at 400°C was improved significantly. This was because of the increase of the average grain size and the improvement of the quality of grain boundaries in the annealed films. The electrical properties of the electroplated copper films were also dominated by their micro texture. However, the stress migration occurred in the interconnections after the annealing at 400°C. This was because of the high residual tensile stress caused by the constraint of the densification of the films by the surrounding oxide film in the interconnection structures during the annealing. Finally, electroplating condition was controlled to improve the electrical properties. Both the resistance of electromigration and electrical resistivity were improved significantly. However, electromigration of copper atoms still occurred at the interface between the electroplated copper and the thin tantalum (Ta) layer sputtered as base material. Therefore, it is very important to control the crystallographic quality of electroplated copper films and the interface between different materials for improving the reliability of thin film interconnections.

Characterization of Sputtered CdTe Thin Films with Electron Backscatter Diffraction and Correlation with Device Performance

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 927-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Nowell ◽  
Michael A. Scarpulla ◽  
Naba R. Paudel ◽  
Kristopher A. Wieland ◽  
Alvin D. Compaan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thin Films ◽  
Grain Size ◽  
Grain Boundary ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Electron Backscatter Diffraction ◽  
Electrical Performance ◽  
Poor Correlation ◽  
Twin Boundaries ◽  
Electron Backscatter ◽  
Backscatter Diffraction

AbstractThe performance of polycrystalline CdTe photovoltaic thin films is expected to depend on the grain boundary density and corresponding grain size of the film microstructure. However, the electrical performance of grain boundaries within these films is not well understood, and can be beneficial, harmful, or neutral in terms of film performance. Electron backscatter diffraction has been used to characterize the grain size, grain boundary structure, and crystallographic texture of sputtered CdTe at varying deposition pressures before and after CdCl2 treatment in order to correlate performance with microstructure. Weak fiber textures were observed in the as-deposited films, with (111) textures present at lower deposition pressures and (110) textures observed at higher deposition pressures. The CdCl2-treated samples exhibited significant grain recrystallization with a high fraction of twin boundaries. Good correlation of solar cell efficiency was observed with twin-corrected grain size while poor correlation was found if the twin boundaries were considered as grain boundaries in the grain size determination. This implies that the twin boundaries are neutral with respect to recombination and carrier transport.

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