EAPSI: The Effects of High Energy Radiation on the Processing of Electronic Materials

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This research examines the effects of high energy radiation and related interactions with new materials required for the advancement of computing. Due to the ever shrinking size of integrated circuits, new materials have been developed to combat negative effects due to component proximity. These new materials must be able to survive many of processes required for fabrication. One important process that these materials must endure is plasma processing, during which high energy radiation is present and can cause a multitude of negative effects. With the use of synchrotron radiation, damage caused by high energy radiation can be solely observed allowing insight to the advancement of these materials. The National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center in Taiwan has beam energies which correspond to those that would be present in plasma as well as having time available to perform the necessary experiments. In addition, our group has previous collaborations with Dr. Yi-Hung Lin and this facility, ensuring that activities carried out here will be both efficient and successful.Damage is a critical issue because during plasma processing, charged particles and photons with energies up the extreme ultraviolet can strike dielectrics or create ions or free radicals in the processing gas. This results in various kinds of damage, including charge buildup, formation of additional defects, chemical restructuring, and mechanical property degradation in low-k dielectric materials. These damage effects are likely to result in shorter time-to-breakdown (TDDB) within microelectronic devices. However, without understanding the relations ship between TDDB and damage effects, it is difficult to improve the dielectric properties so as to slow/mitigate the process of TDDB. This project will allow the development of a metrology that can predict TDDB caused by processing plasma exposure, including charge buildup, defect formation, chemical changes and mechanical changes as well as by metal implantation. By suitable choice of photon energy, UV/VUV exposure can be used to improve the properties of the dielectric so that TDDB and other damage can be mitigated or eliminated. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan.