Height Dependent Resistivity of Copper Interconnects in the Size Effect

ABSTRACTWe investigated the copper grain size dependence on the interconnect line height using the EBSD (Electron Back Scattering Diffraction) pattern method. In our grain size measurements, we excluded the twin boundaries because of its small contribution to the electron scattering. Our experiments showed that the average grain size of a 70 nm-high line was about 24% smaller than for a 190 nm-high line.We estimated the grain boundary scattering components by the Fuchs-Sondheimer (FS) and the Mayadas-Shatzkes (MS) models including the line height dependence of the grain size parameter (d). In order to evaluate precisely the influence of height dependence of grain size in the FS and MS models, we also determined the surface scattering coefficient of the Ta/Cu and SiC/Cu interfaces by an independent experiment.From this, we found that grain boundary scattering components became approximately 32% larger for the 70 nm-wide line when the line height dependence of the grain size was taken into consideration.