US 7335996 B2
A method of bonding includes using a bonding layer having a fluorinated oxide. Fluorine may be introduced into the bonding layer by exposure to a fluorine-containing solution, vapor or gas or by implantation. The bonding layer may also be formed using a method where fluorine is introduced into the layer during its formation. The surface of the bonding layer is terminated with a desired species, preferably an NH2 species. This may be accomplished by exposing the bonding layer to an NH4OH solution. High bonding strength is obtained at room temperature. The method may also include bonding two bonding layers together and creating a fluorine distribution having a peak in the vicinity of the interface between the bonding layers. One of the bonding layers may include two oxide layers formed on each other. The fluorine concentration may also have a second peak at the interface between the two oxide layers.
1. A bonded structure, comprising:
first and second elements;
first and second bonding layers respectively formed on said first and second elements;
said first bonding layer non-adhesively bonded to said second bonding layer; and
said first bonding layer comprising a fluorinated oxide.
2. A structure as recited in
said first bonding layer comprises a first oxide layer formed on a second oxide layer; and
a fluorine concentration in said first bonding layer has a first peak located in the vicinity of an interface between said first and second bonding layers and a second peak located at an interface between said first and second oxide layers.
3. A structure as recited in
4. A structure as recited in
5. A structure as recited in
6. A structure as recited in
7. A structure as recited in
8. A structure as recited in
9. A structure as recited in
10. A structure as recited in
11. A structure as recited in
This application is a division of and claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. §120 from U.S. application Ser. No. 10/440,099, now U.S. Pat. 7,109,092, filed May 19, 2003, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
This application is related to application Ser. Nos. 09/410,054, 09/505,283 and 09/532,886, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of wafer direct bonding at room temperature, and more particularly to the bonding of substrates for the fabrication of engineered substrates, encapsulation, and three-dimensional device integration using the effects of, and combined effects of, fluorine and ammonium in dielectrics, especially in a silicon oxide layer.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the physical limits of conventional CMOS device are being approached and the demands for high performance electronic systems are imminent, system-on-a chip (SOC) is becoming a natural solution of the semiconductor industry. For system-on-a chip preparation, a variety of functions are required on a chip. While silicon technology is the mainstay technology for processing a large number devices, many of the desired circuit and optoelectronic functions can now best be obtained from individual devices and/or circuits fabricated in materials other than silicon. Hence, hybrid systems which integrate non-silicon based devices with silicon based devices offer the potential to provide unique SOC functions not available from pure silicon or pure non-silicon devices alone.
One method for heterogeneous device integration has been the hetero-epitaxial growth of dissimilar materials on silicon. To date, such hetero-epitaxial growth has realized a high density of defects in the hetero-epitaxial grown films, largely due to the mismatches in lattice constants between the non-silicon films and the substrate.
Another approach to heterogeneous device integration has been wafer bonding technology. However, wafer bonding of dissimilar materials having different thermal expansion coefficients at elevated temperature introduces thermal stresses that lead to dislocation generation, debonding, or cracking. Thus, low temperature bonding is desired. Low temperature bonding is also desired for the bonding of dissimilar materials if the dissimilar materials include materials with low decomposition temperatures or temperature sensitive devices such as, for example, an Inp heterojunction bipolar transistor or a processed Si device with ultrashallow source and drain profiles.
The design of processes needed to produce different functions on the same chip containing different materials is difficult and hard to optimize. Indeed, many of the resultant SOC chips (especially those at larger integration size) show a low yield. One approach has been to interconnect fully processed ICs by wafer adhesive bonding and layer transfer. See for example Y. Hayashi, S. Wada, K. Kajiyana, K. Oyama, R. Koh, S Takahashi and T. Kunio, Symp. VLSI Tech. Dig. 95 (1990) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,563,084, the entire contents of both references are incorporated herein by reference. However, wafer adhesive bonding usually operates at elevated temperatures and suffers from thermal stress, out-gassing, bubble formation and instability of the adhesive, leading to reduced yield in the process and poor reliability over time. The adhesive may also be incompatible with typical semiconductor manufacturing processes. Moreover, adhesive bond is usually not hermitic.
Room temperature wafer direct bonding is a technology that allows wafers to be bonded at room temperature without using any adhesive resulting in a hermitic bond. It is not prone to introduce stress and inhomogeneity as in the adhesive bonding. Further, if the low temperature bonded wafer pairs can withstand a thinning process, when one wafer of a bonded pair is thinned to a thickness less than the respective critical value for the specific materials combination, the generation of misfit dislocations in the layer and sliding or cracking of the bonded pairs during subsequent thermal processing steps are avoided. See for example Q.-Y. Tong and U. Gosele, Semiconductor Wafer Bonding: Science and Technology, John Wiley & Sons, New York, (1999), the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention is directed to a bonding method including forming first and second bonding layers on respective first and second elements, at least one of the bonding layers comprising a fluorinated oxide layer, bringing into contact the first and second bonding layers in ambient at room temperature, and forming a bond between said first and second layers at room temperature.
Forming at least one of said bonding layers comprising a fluorinated oxide layer may include forming an oxide layer and exposing the layer to a fluorine-containing solution, vapor or gas.
The method of forming a bonded structure according to the invention may also include bonding first and second bonding layers, and forming a fluorine concentration having a first peak in the vicinity of an interface between the first and second bonding layers and a second peak in at least one of said first and second layers separated from the first peak and located a distance from the first peak. One of the bonding layers may be an oxide layer, and the method may further include introducing fluorine into the oxide layer, and forming a second oxide layer on the first oxide layer after the introducing step.
The present invention is also directed to a bonded structure having first and second elements, first and second bonding layers respectively formed on the first and second elements, the first bonding layer non-adhesively bonded to the second bonding layer and the first bonding layer comprises a fluorinated oxide. In the structure the first bonding layer may comprise a first oxide layer formed on a second oxide layer, where a fluorine concentration in the first bonding layer has a first peak located in the vicinity of an interface between the first and second bonding layers and a second peak located at an interface between the first and second oxide layers.
It is an object of the present invention to achieve a very high density of covalent bonds at room temperature in air on the surface of silicon oxide covered wafers of a wide variety of materials.
A further object of the present invention is to reduce the density of a surface silicon oxide layer having a thickness of nm to μm.
A still further object of the present invention is to enhance the diffusion rate of impurities and/moisture absorption away from a bond interface.
Another object of the present invention is to obtain a bonding layer (nm to μm in thickness) having a Fluorine concentration greater than 1×1017 cm−3 on the surface.
An additional object of the present invention is to vary the density of covalent bonds across a bonding interface over the surface of an Integrated Circuit or device pattern using standard semiconductor process(es).
Another object of the present invention is to form a low-k dielectric locally or wholly on a silicon oxide surface with a fluorination treatment by standard semiconductor process(es).
A still further object of the present invention is to create a material whose surface can be atomically terminated with a desired group such that covalent bonds are formed when two such surfaces are brought into contact at room temperature.
A more complete appreciation of the present invention and many attendant advantages thereof will be readily obtained as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Referring now to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals designate like or corresponding parts throughout the several views, and more particularly to FIGS. 1 and 2A-2B illustrating a first embodiment of the bonding process of the present invention is described.
In a first example of the first embodiment, PECVD (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition) silicon dioxide was deposited on single-side polished silicon wafers at 200-250° C. The thickness of the PECVD oxide is not critical and was arbitrarily chosen as ˜1.0 μm. The wafers covered with the PECVD oxide layers were polished to smooth the surfaces. AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) was employed to determine the RMS (Root Mean Square) value of surface micro-roughness to be 1-3 Å. The wafers were cleaned by a modified RCA 1 (H2O:H2O2:NH4OH=5:1:0.25) solution and spin-dried.
The wafers were divided arbitrarily into several groups with each wafer pair in a group treated in a specific way prior to bonding. In Group I, the oxide covered wafer pairs were treated in an oxygen plasma for thirty seconds in an reactive ion etch mode (RIE) at 100 mTorr. The plasma treated wafers were dipped in CMOS grade ammonium hydroxide aqueous solution containing 35% ammonia, termed “NH4OH” hereafter, before being spin-dried and bonded in air at room temperature. In Group II, the oxide covered wafers were dipped in 0.025% HF aqueous solution for 30 seconds and spin-dried. The HF concentration may vary according to the type of silicon oxide used and can be from 0.01% to 0.5%. The wafers were then heated in air at 250° C. for 2-10 h. The wafers were cleaned again in RCA 1, oxygen plasma treated, dipped in NH4OH and spin-dried before bonded in air at room temperature.
To determine the effect of the oxygen plasma treatment in enhancing the bonding energy at room temperature, another group (Group III) of wafers was prepared. The oxide covered wafer pairs in Group III were bonded at room temperature after the same process conditions as wafer pairs in Group II except that the oxygen plasma treatment step was omitted. A similar bonding energy was realized at room temperature for wafer pairs with and without plasma treatment as shown in
In a further group, Group IV, the oxide covered wafer pairs were bonded at room temperature after the same process conditions as wafer pairs in Group II except that the step of NH4OH dip was eliminated and replaced by de-ionized water rinse.
The NH4OH treatment terminates the surface with NH2 groups. Preferably, thus, in the method according to the invention NH2 groups are terminated on the surface. This can be accomplished by exposure to a NH4OH-containing gas, exposure to a NH4OH-containing plasma, exposure to a NH4OH-containing liquid vapor or exposure to a NH4OH-containing liquid or combination of above treatments.
Wafer pairs were processed as those in Group II, but the post-HF baking was varied. When no baking was used and bonded wafers were stored in air at room temperature, a bond energy ˜1000 mJ/m2 was obtained. The increase in room temperature bonding energy as a function of a post-HF baking temperature for 10 hours of these wafer pairs is shown in
The above results indicate, from the resultant high bond strengths, that each of the HF dip, the post-HF baking, and the NH4OH dip of the oxide-covered wafers contributes to chemical bonding at room temperature.
It is known in the art that adding fluorine into silicon dioxide can lower the oxide density and create micro-voids in the oxide network (see for example S. Lee and J-W. Park, J. Appl. Phys. 80(9) (1996) 5260, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference). Recently, V. Pankov et al., J. Appl. Phys. 86 (1999) 275, and A. Kazor et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 65 (1994) 1572, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, have reported that fluorine incorporation causes Si—O—Si ring breaking and changes of the silicon dioxide network structure towards large size rings with lower density via the following reaction:
This modified structure facilitates a higher diffusion rate of impurities and enhanced moisture absorption. Furthermore, it is well known that fluorinated silicon dioxide (SiOF) absorbs water effectively when it is exposed to humid atmosphere. V. Pankov, J. C. Alonso and A. Ortiz, J. Appl. Phys. 86 (1999), p. 275, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
During a HF dip such as the dip in 0.025% HF aqueous solution of the present invention, in addition to the formation of Si—F and Si—OH groups on the silicon dioxide surface, some F ions are also generated as follows:
Si—OH+HF2 −→Si—F+F−+H2O (2)
See for example H. Nielsen and D. Hackleman, J. Electrochem. Soc. Vol. 130 (1983) p. 708, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The post-HF baking at elevated temperatures helps remove water that is generated by the above reaction and enhances the fluorine diffusion. Fluorine atoms diffuse into the oxide and react with Si—O—Si bonds to form SiOF according to Eq. (1).
A higher temperature post-HF bake could possibly produce a thicker SiOF layer on the oxide surface leading to a higher bonding energy at room temperature due to higher efficiency of water absorption. However, the results in
In a preferred process of the present invention, the outermost surface termination of silicon dioxide is converted from Si—F after post-HF annealing to Si—OH after a RCA 1 solution cleaning by the exchange reaction:
Most Si—OH groups are then converted to S—NH2 after an, for example, aqueous NH4OH dip (that contains about 65% H2O):
However, the surface is still partially terminated in OH groups after the NH4OH dip due to the H2O content in the NH4OH.
The Si—NH2 and Si—OH terminated surfaces are bonded at room temperature and the following reactions take place when the two surfaces are in sufficient proximity:
For example, Q.-Y. Tong and U. Goesele, J. Electroch. Soc., 142 (1995), p. 3975 have reported that Si—O—Si covalent bonds can be formed between two Si—OH groups that are hydrogen bonded on opposite bonding hydrophilic surfaces at room temperature. However, the above polymerization reaction is reversible at temperatures less than ˜425° C. See for example M. L. Hair, in Silicon Chemistry, E. R. Corey, J. Y. Corey and P. P. Gaspar, Eds, Wiley, New York, (1987), p. 482, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
If the water and hydrogen generated by the above reactions can be removed without heat, the covalent bonds become not subject to reversibility according to the above reactions and permanent covalent bonding at room temperature results. According to the present invention, by fluorinating the oxide before bonding, fluorine is incorporated into the oxide away from the bonding interface and the by-product water of the above polymerization reaction can be absorbed by diffusing from the bonding interface into the low density fluorinated oxide away from the bonding interface, leading to a high degree of covalent bonding across the interface at room temperature. The bonding energy as a function of the square root of storage time at room temperature is shown in
See for example J. C. C. Tsai, in VLSI Technology, S. M. Sze, Ed, McGraw-Hill, Auckland, (1983), p. 147, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
As the bonding energy γ is reversibly proportional to the water and hydrogen concentration at the bonding interface, the bonding energy should proportional to the inverse of the hydrogen and water concentration at the interface:
Although the concentration of NH2 termination may be greater than OH termination resulting in a higher concentration of H2 than H2O after bonding, the diffusivity of hydrogen is expected to be significantly higher than that of water due to its much smaller size (2.5 Å vs. 3.3 Å). The increase in bond energy may then be dominated by the diffusion of water and be proportional to the square root of time if the diffusion coefficient is a constant:
Consistent with this understanding, an approximate linear relation of the measured bonding energy vs. square root of storage time is observed, as shown in
For a bonding surface that is terminated primarily with OH groups, for example one not treated with NH4OH as, for example, the wafers in Group IV, there is a substantially higher concentration of H2O to diffuse away from the interface. Therefore, the bonding energy of wafer pairs with NH4OH dip increases quickly with storage time and reaches a much higher value than that of wafer pairs without NH4OH dip as shown in
A method of fluorinating an oxide layer for use in subsequent bonding is shown in
After annealing at ˜250° C. a SiOF surface bonding layer 83 of about 0.5 μm thick is formed in the surface 82 of layer 81 (
It is also possible to bond the SiOF surface layer to another bonding layer without an SiOF surface layer. It is also possible to form SiOF surface layers by F+ implantation and/or etching (for example dry etching using SF6 and/or CF4) of silicon oxide followed by baking at an elevated temperature. It is further possible to form SiOF surface layers by PECVD (Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition). For example, electron-resonance PECVD oxide deposition using SiF4/Ar/N2O at room temperature (S. P. Kim, S. K. Choi, Y. Park and I Chung, Appl. Phys. Lett. 79 (2001), p. 185, PECVD oxide deposition using Si2H6/CF4/N2O at 120° C., J. Song, P. K. Ajmera and G. S. Lee, Appl. Phys. Lett. 69 (1996), p. 1876 or SiF4/O2/Ar at 300° C. S. Lee and J. Park, Appl. Phys. Lett. 80 (1996), p. 5260.
The HF-dip and annealing to form the SiOF surface bonding layer on silicon dioxide surface has unique applications.
A CMP process step may then be used to planarize the recessed area and improve the surface roughness. A Group I surface treatment is then applied to layer 96, and the silicon wafer is bonded at room temperature to another wafer, such as a silicon dioxide layer 97 covering wafer 98, as shown in
When a bonded pair so formed is forcibly separated, the resulting separation is typically not at the bonding interface of the HF dipped device region. Instead, a part of the silicon wafer or the silicon wafer itself may fracture beneath the bonded interface and peel from the substrate, as shown schematically in
A physical example of the
This localized fluorination may also result in the formation of a lower k dielectric due to the introduction of F into the oxide which lowers the dielectric constant of the material. This feature of the present invention may be used to advantage in the design of integrated circuits or other structures. For example, a low k dielectric can be formed between the metal lines, but not at the via level in multi-layer interconnects in VLSI devices, by an etching process, such as exposure to HF, at an area where low k dielectric is desired followed by an oxide deposition at ˜250° C.
A second example of the method will be described again using
SIMS (Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy) measurements were taken on the sample shown in
The post-HF aqueous dip bake of 10 hours at 250° C. is comparable to the temperature and duration of iterated PECVD oxide deposition. It is thus possible to avoid a separate annealing step after the HF dip by instead depositing a PECVD oxide on the HF treated surface. An example of this advantage is in the planarization of a non-planar wafer in preparation for wafer bonding. For example, the room temperature bonding can be very useful for the bonding of integrated circuits (ICs). However, ICs typically have a non-planar surface that is not conducive to the planar and smooth surfaces preferable for room temperature direct wafer bonding. A method for improving this planarity is to deposit an oxide layer followed by CMP. This is similar to the example provided above with the exception that the non-planarity may be 1 micron or more. In this case of increased non-planarity, a thicker oxide is deposited or more than one iteration of oxide deposition and CMP is used to achieve the desired planarity. In this planarization process, if the HF treatment is applied before the (last) oxide depositions, then the subsequent oxide deposition will have an increased F concentration and a F accumulation at its surface after the oxide deposition. This F concentration can then result in a higher bond energy, for example with a Group I pre-bond treatment as described above, without any post-oxide-growth heat treatment, than would otherwise be obtained if the HF treatment was not used.
The method of the present invention can be carried out in ambient conditions rather than being restricted to high or ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions. Consequently, the method of the present invention is a low-cost, mass-production manufacturing technology. The method is also not limited by the type of wafer, substrate or element bonded. The wafer may be a bulk material, such as silicon, a wafer having devices formed therein, a handler substrate, a heat sink, etc.
Another bonding layer 208 of the same or different material, such as a deposited silicon oxide material is formed on portion 207 (as shown in
The present invention can bond locally or across an entire wafer surface area. In other words, smaller die may be bonded to a larger die. This is shown in
The present invention may also be used in room temperature metal direct bonding, as described in application Ser. No. 10/359,608, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference. As shown in
The metal direct bonding offers numerous advantages including elimination of die grinding and thinning, via etching and metal deposition to form electrical interconnections to interconnect bonded wafers as described in the referenced art. This eliminates any mechanical damage caused by these die grinding and thinning. Further, the elimination of deep via etching avoids step coverage problems, allows the process to be scaled to smaller dimensions, resulting in smaller via plugs to contact bonded wafers. The method is compatible with other standard semiconductor processes, and is VLSI compatible.
In a further example, the method of the invention can be applied to hermitic encapsulation as shown in
According to the present invention, silicon dioxide formed by any method such as deposition, sputtering, thermally or chemically oxidation, and spin-on glass, can be used in pure or doped states.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an ammonia solution dip of wafers covered by fluorinated surface silicon dioxide layers, after hydration and prior to bonding, significantly increases the bonding energy at room temperature due to the formation of Si—N bonds and hydrogen.
An HF-dip and post-HF baking can produce localized covalent bonding at a desirable location on the wafer such as in an etched window in the silicon dioxide layer. Alternatively F implantation and subsequent annealing can produce localized covalent bonding at desirable locations.
According to the present invention, the HF-dip and post-HF baking can form low k dielectric locally in silicon dioxide layers. For instance, low k dielectric can be formed between the metal lines but not at the via level in multi-layer interconnects in VLSI devices.
The method of the invention is applicable to any type of substrate, such as heat sinks, handler or surrogate substrates, substrates with active devices, substrates with integrated circuits, etc. Substrates of different technologies, i.e. silicon, III-V materials, II-VI materials, etc. may be used with the invention.
Applications of the present invention include but are not limited to vertical integration of processed integrated circuits for 3-D SOC, micro-pad packaging, low-cost and high-performance replacement of flip chip bonding, wafer scale packaging, thermal management and unique device structures such as metal base devices.
Numerous modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings. It is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein.