Silver Metallization : Stability and Reliability

Silver has the lowest resistivity of all metals, which makes it an attractive interconnect material for higher current densities and faster switching speeds in integrated circuits. Over the past ten years, extensive research has been conducted to address the thermal and electrical stability, as well as processing issues which, to date, have prevented the implementation of silver as an interconnect metal. Silver Metallization: Stability and Reliability is the first book to discuss current knowledge of silver metallization and its potential as a favorable candidate for implementation as a future interconnect material for integrated circuit technology.

Silver Metallization: Stability and Reliability provides detailed information on a wide range of experimental, characterization and analysis techniques. It also presents the novel approaches used to overcome the thermal and electrical stability issues associated with silver metallization. Readers will learn about the: - preparation and characterization of elemental silver thin films and silver-metal alloys; - formation of diffusion barriers and adhesion promoters; - evaluation of the thermal stability of silver under different annealing conditions; - evaluation of the electrical properties of silver thin films under various processing conditions; - methods of dry etching of silver lines and the integration of silver with low-k dielectric materials.

As a valuable resource in this emerging field; Silver Metallization: Stability and Reliability will be very useful to students, scientists, engineers and technologists in the fields of integrated circuits and microelectronics research and development.

James W. Mayer is the Galvin Professor of Science and Engineering and Regents Professor at Arizona State University. He has investigated thin film phenomena and metallization for integrated circuits over the past two decades. Previously he was the F.N. Bard Professor of Materials Science at Cornell University and before this, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Physics at Purdue University and was a member of the technical staff at Hughes Research Laboratories. He is known for his work on nuclear particle detectors and Rutherford backscattering analysis. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Physical Society and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Terry L. Alford is a professor of materials engineering in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at Arizona State University. Dr Alford received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and was previously employed by Texas Instruments. He has had extensive consulting experience with Philips Semiconductors, Freescale Semiconductors, and Motorola. He has published extensively on the properties of thin films and the use of analysis techniques to characterize the films.

Daniel Adams is a professor of physics in the Department of Physics at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He has extensively investigated silver and copper metallization for the past ten years. Dr Adams received his PhD in Materials Engineering from Arizona State University, USA.