Root Cause Analyses of Metal Bridging for Copper Damascene Process

New process will introduce new failure mechanisms during microelectronic device manufacturing. Even if the same defect, its root causes can be different for different processes. For aluminum(Al)-tungsten(W) metallization, the root cause of metal bridging is quite simple and mostly it is blocked etch or under-etch. But, for copper damascene process, the root causes of metal bridging are complicated. This paper has discussed the various root causes of metal bridging for copper damascene process, such as those related to litho-etch issue, copper CMP issue, copper corrosion issue and so on.