Chemical Vapor Deposition of Metals for Integrated Circuit Applications

Chemical vapor deposition has been used to deposit films and purify metals since about the turn of the century. Whereas CVD technology was adopted very early by the integrated circuit industry for the deposition of semiconductor and insulator films, CVD metals applications in this industry are now only in their infancy. The advantages of CVD metals technology, i.e., confor-mal coverage, low temperature and radiation damage-free deposition, selectivity and high purity film formation are discussed here in the context of VLSI metallization requirements. CVD metals can now fulfill materials requirements that sputtering and evaporation, the traditional metal films deposition processes, cannot.