Film Deposition

• Deposition – layering/coating on wafer substrate.

• Film – thin layer – mostly used material polysilicon, silicon dioxide and
silicon nitride.
• Thin film deposition – is the process, in which very thin layer of any
required material is coated on the substrate to form functional devices.
• Thin films are deposited onto bulk substrate to achieve properties
unattainable (or) not easily attainable in the substrate alone.
• These unique properties can be due to their small thickness (few
micrometers to nanometers). This will change the optical, electronics,
magnetic, thermal and chemical properties.
1. On substrate (Si wafer), oxide (SiO2) layer is formed through oxidation
process.
2. Through photolithography, only 2 oxide layer remain.
3. Now, have to form conducting region – have to make S, D and Gate
region.

SiO2
SiO2 SiO2

Si wafer Si wafer
(substrate) (substrate)
For conducting region, the Gate terminal is isolated from the substrate, so that a
channel can be enhanced (or) depleted. So that, using Gate voltage the channel
conductivity can be changed/controlled and no recombination takes place.

Gate is isolated from the channel that is enhanced or depleted. The channel is
insulated from the gate terminal so that gate voltage does not recombine with the
negative ions.
• In this technique, a thin film of polysilicon or silicon dioxide or silicon
nitride is deposited on a substrate by vacuum or vapor deposition method.
• The film thickness is typically from 50𝐴ሶ to 20000𝐴.ሶ
• These films provide conducting regions within the device, electrical
insulation between the metals and protection from the environment.

Film Deposition Process

Film is deposited through vapor deposition techniques. Vapors can be created
through physical method (or) chemical method.
Physical Vapor Deposition
1. Vacuum deposition
2. Sputtering method

Vacuum deposition
• There’s a source and a substrate.
• Source – material who’s layer is to be generated
• Substrate – onto which the the thin film layer is to be deposited.
• Source and substrate are present inside a bell jar. Bell jar – used to create
a high vacuum.
• In this, the source and the substrate material to be evaporated are placed in
the bell jar.
• The source material is heated by an electrical unit, until it vaporizes.
• When the source material’s vapor pressure exceeds that existing in the bell
jar, the material vaporizes rapidly.
• The vaporized atoms radiates in all the directions and condenses on all
lower temperature surfaces including the substrate,
Sputtering deposition process
• Substrate placed on the anode.
• Material to be deposited is on the cathode.
• This process involves bombardment of metal ions onto the cathode
materials.
• When the metal ions are bombarded onto the cathode material, metal
atoms are released from the cathode constituting the source material as a
result of high energy bombardment.
• These released atoms form a thin film layer on
the substrate.
Chemical Vapor Deposition
Chemical vapor deposition uses chemicals and chemical reactions to deposit
films on the wafer surface.

The different reactors used for chemical vapor deposition is as follows:

1. Atmospheric pressure CVD
2. Low pressure CVD
3. Plasma enhanced CVD
Atmospheric pressure CVD
• This method is used to deposit silicon dioxide on the substrate.
• The samples are carried from unload and load stack through the reactor on
a conveyor belt.
• Heater – used to maintain certain temperature of the wafer.
• From the gas showerhead, reactive gases
are injected. Nitrogen gas used to cool down
the wafer.
As soon as the wafer comes in contact with
the gases, through chemical reaction, the
thin-film is deposited on the substrate.
• Wafer temperature is held between 240 degree – 450 degree.
• Following reactions takes places when wafer comes in contact with the
reactive gases.
𝑆𝑖𝐻4 +𝑂2 ⟶ 𝑆𝑖𝑂2 + 2𝐻2

Advantages:
1. High uniformity
2. Ability to handle large diameter wafers
3. High deposition rate

Disadvantages:
1. Reactor must be cleaned frequently
2. Fast gas flows are required
Low pressure CVD (LPCVD)
• Figure shows a hot-wall, reduced-pressure reactor used for deposition of
polysilicon, silicon dioxide, and silicon nitride.
• Reactor consists of a quartz tube heated by a three zone furnace.
• Gas are introduced into one end and pumped out on the other end.
• Pressure is maintained between 30 to 250 Pa using pressure sensor.
• Temperature is maintained between 300-900 degrees.
• Wafers stand vertically, perpendicular to the gas flow, in a quartz holder.
• 50-200 wafers are processed in each run.

Advantages:
1. Excellent uniformity
2. Ability to handle large diameter wafer

Disadvantages:
1. Frequent use of toxic or inflammable gases
Plasma enhanced CVD
• Figure shows a radial-flow , parallel-plate, plasma-assisted CVD reactor.
• The reaction chamber is a cylinder, usually glass or aluminum, with
aluminum plates on the top and bottom.
• Samples (wafer) lie on the grounded bottom electrode.
• A radio frequency voltage applied to the top electrode is applied to the gas
flow, creating a glow discharge (plasma) between the plates.
• High-intensity lamps heat the bottom, grounded electrode to a temperature
between 100-400 degrees.
• This method is used for plasma-assisted deposition of silicon dioxide and
silicon nitride.

Advantages:
1. Low deposition temperature.

Disadvantages:
1. Capacity is limited; especially for large-diameter wafers
2. Wafers must be loaded and unloaded individually
3. Wafers may be contaminated by loosely adhering deposits falling on them.
Deposition process of polysilicon
• Polysilicon is used as the gate electrode in MOS devices.
• Polysilicon is also used for resistors, conductors and to ensure ohmic
contact to shallow junctions.
• The polysilicon is deposited by pyrolyzing silane between 575 and 650
degree in a low pressure reactor.
• LPCVD method is used for deposition of polysilicon on substrate.
• The chemical reaction is:
𝑆𝑖𝐻4 ⟶ 𝑆𝑖 + 2𝐻2
Deposition process of silicon nitride
• Silicon nitride is used as a mask for the selective oxidation of silicon.
• Silicon nitride is chemically deposited by reacting silane and ammonia at
atmospheric pressure at temperature 700 and 900 degrees.
• LPCVD method is used for deposition of silicon nitride on substrate.
• The chemical reaction is:
3𝑆𝑖𝐻4 +4 𝑁𝐻3 ⟶ 𝑆𝑖3 𝑁4 + 12𝐻2
Diffusion: Basic Concept

• Introducing impurities into selected regions of a semiconductor in order to

alter its electronic properties is called diffusion.
• Impurity atoms are introduced onto the surface of a silicon wafer , which
diffuses into the lattice because of their tendency to move from regions of
high concentration to region of low concentration and takes place only at
900-1100 degree.
• Diffusion is used to form bases, emitter and resistors in bipolar device
technology.
• It is also used to form source and drain regions and dope polysilicon in
MOS device technology.
Diffusion in liquids, solids and gases
• In solids, atoms are strongly bonded to each other through covalent bonds.
So, there will be less atomic vibrations in solids.
• The atomic vibrations in liquids will be more than the solids, but less than
gases.
• The rate of diffusion will be highest in the gases.
• In case of gases, diffusant atoms can reach up to a longer distance and fast
speed as compared to solids.

Gas Liquids Solids

Diffusion

• Process of doping Si with P to form n-type semiconductor.

• Impurity atoms are introduced onto the surface of the silicon wafer and
diffuse into the lattice because of their tendency to move from regions of
high to low concentration.
• Diffusion of impurity atoms into silicon crystal takes place only at
elevated temperatures, typically 900 - 1100 degree.
Diffusion
Models of diffusion in solids
1. Substitutional diffusion
2. Interstitial diffusion

Substitutional diffusion

• In a semiconductor, atoms are connected through covalent bonds.

• At high temperature, many atoms in the semiconductor move out of their
lattice sites breaking the covalent bonds between them, leaving vacancy,
into which the impurity atom will diffuse.
• This type of diffusion is called substitutional diffusion, in which silicon
atoms of parent crystal are replaced by impurity atoms.
Interstitial diffusion

• In such diffusion, the impurity atoms does not replace the silicon atom, but
instead moves into the interstitial voids in the lattice.
• The main type of impurity diffusing by such mechanism are gold, copper
and Nickle.
• Since these impurity atoms are smaller, hence they cannot replace the host
atoms.
Flux
Flux = change of mass (or) the atoms per unit time per unit area.

1 𝑑𝑀 𝐾𝑔 𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑠
Flux, 𝐽 = ⇒ 𝑜𝑟 [ 2 ]
𝐴 𝑑𝑡 𝑚2 𝑠 𝑚 𝑠

• It is a directional quantity
Fick’s 1D Diffusion Law
• The local rate of transfer of solute per unit area per unit time is
proportional to the concentration gradient of the solute and defines the
proportionality constant as diffusivity of the solute. The negative sign
shows the flow towards lower concentration of solute.

𝜕𝐶(𝑥,𝑡)
𝐽𝑖 = −𝐷𝑖 ……………………………… 1
𝜕𝑥

𝐽 = rate of transfer of solute per unit area (or) diffusion flux

𝐶 = concentration of solute (function of x and t)
𝑥 = coordinates axis in the direction of solute flow
𝑡 = diffusion time
𝐷 = diffusivity (or) diffusion constant
• Random motion leads to a net mass flux when the concentration is not
uniform.
• Flux has units of ‘mass or moles or volume’ distance/time’
• Diffusion coefficient has units of ‘𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 2 /𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒′
• Equation 1 is called fick’s first law of diffusion

From the law of conservation of matter, the change of solute concentration

with time must be same as the local decrease of the diffusion flux,

𝜕𝐶(𝑥, 𝑡) 𝜕𝐽 𝑥, 𝑡
=− …………………2
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥
Substituting Eq 1 in Eq 2 gives Fick’s second law of diffusion in one-
dimensional form,

𝜕𝐶(𝑥, 𝑡) 𝜕 𝜕𝐶 𝑥, 𝑡
= [𝐷𝑖 ]…………………3
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥

𝜕𝐶(𝑥,𝑡) 𝜕2 𝐶 𝑥,𝑡
(or) = 𝐷𝑖
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥 2
Diffusion profiles

𝜕𝐶(𝑥,𝑡) 𝜕2 𝐶 𝑥,𝑡
= 𝐷𝑖 ………………………4
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥 2

• Depending on boundary conditions, there are two solutions to the above

equation (Fick’s 2nd law)
• These solutions provide two types of impurity distribution (or) diffusion
profile.
Constant source diffusion
In this, the impurity concentration at the semiconductor surface is maintained at
a constant level throughout the diffusion cycle.
Using the boundary conditions,
𝑐 𝑥, 𝑡 = 𝐶𝑠 (constant)
𝑐(∞, 𝑡) = 0
So, the solution of Eq. 3 can be expressed as,
𝑥
𝐶 𝑥, 𝑡 = 𝐶𝑠 erfc( )
2 𝐷𝑡

𝐶𝑠 = impurity concentration at the surface (atom/𝑐𝑚2 )

𝑥 = penetration depth (𝑐𝑚)
𝑡 = diffusion time (𝑠𝑒𝑐)
𝐷 = diffusivity (or) diffusion constant (𝑐𝑚2 /sec)
Limited source diffusion
In this a predetermined amount of impurity is introduced into the crystal.
Two steps are involved in this:
1. Predeposition step:
• In this step, a fixed number of impurity atoms are deposited on th silicon
wafer during a short time.
• The semiconductor is heated to a carefully selected and controlled
temperature.
• The material used as dopant enters the crystal structure until a maximum
concentration called the solid solubility (i.e. the maximum amount of the
dopant that will diffuse into the silicon) is reached.
Limited source diffusion
2. Drive-in step:
• Here, the impurity source is turned off and the amount of impurity already
deposited during step (1) are allowed to diffuse into the silicon wafer.
• Using the boundary conditions,
∞
‫׬‬0 𝐶 𝑥, 𝑡 𝑑𝑥 = 𝑠 and 𝑐(∞, 𝑡) = 0

The solution of Fick’s equation (Eq. 4) can be expressed as,

𝑠 −𝑥 2
𝐶 𝑥, 𝑡 = ( )𝑒 4𝐷𝑡
𝜋𝐷𝑡

𝑥 = total amount of dopant per unit area

Diffusion furnace
• For various types of diffusion process, a resistance heated tube/furnace is
used.
• This tube furnace has a long (about 2-3 m) hollow opening into which a
quartz tube about 100-150 mm in diameter is placed.
• The temperature of the furnace is kept about 1000 degree.
• This is achieved by three individually controlled adjacent resistance
elements.
• The silicon wafers to be processed are stacked up vertically into slots in a
quartz tube or ‘boat’ inside the furnace.
Solid dopant sources
• In this type of diffusion system, a platinum boat is used to hold a solid
source of dopant oxide.
• Temperature of the platinum boat has to be raised. For this, the platinum
boat is brought near to the region of the furnace where the temperature is
high.
• As the temperature raises, the solid
dopants converted to vapors.
• The carrier gas transport vapors from the
source and deposits them on the wafers.
• The source is shut off by moving the
source boat to a cooler region of the furnace.
Liquid dopant sources
• In this, boron tribromide (𝐵𝐵𝑟3 ) is used as liquid source for diffusion.
• Controlled flow of carrier gas is bubbled through boron tribromide as
shown in Figure, which with oxygen produces boron trioxide at the surface
of the wafer as per the following reaction:

𝐵𝐵𝑟3 + 3𝑂2 → 2𝐵2 𝑂3 + 6𝐵𝑟2

2𝐵2 𝑂3 + 3𝑆𝑖 → 4B + 3Si𝑂2
Gases dopant sources
• In this, diborane (𝐵2 𝐻6 ) is used as a gaseous source for diffusion of silicon
wafers.
• The principle gas flow into the furnace will be nitrogen which is used as a
carrier gas.
• Here, no need of temperature increase needed to vaporize the dopant as the
dopant already in gaseous form.
• A small amount of oxygen and a source of boron will makeup the rest of the
gas flows.
The chemical reactions are:
𝑆𝑖 + 𝑂2 → 𝑆𝑖𝑂2
2𝐵2 𝐻6 + 3𝑂2 → 𝐵2 𝑂3 + 6𝐻2
Ion implantation vs. Diffusion
1. Less prone to contamination.
• In diffusion, one of the major consideration is contamination. Cannot use
the same furnace for diffusing Boron and Phosphorous (or) any other
impurities.
• In Phosphorous diffusion furnace, there will be a lot of 𝑃2 𝑂5 deposition.
Hence, cannot use the same furnace for Boron diffusion.
• So, diffusion process is prone to contamination. One must have separate
furnace, separate quartz tube, separate boat, separate set of everything.
• On the other hand, ion implantation is much less prone to contamination,
i.e. the same system can be used to implant various dopants.
Ion implantation vs. Diffusion
• Ion implantation is an inherently cleaner process because it is done under
high vacuum. Any high vacuum system is obviously going to be much
cleaner. In high vacuum system, all the contaminants are pumped out.
2. Better control of doping profile
In diffusion, the control of the doping profile is usually within 5-10 % of the
predicted value. There are various factors – one cannot control the ambient
temperature accurately.
• In ion implantation, there is precise control over the depth and concentration
of dopants, allowing for sharp profiles and the ability to create highly
localized doping.
Ion implantation vs. Diffusion
• This is because, in ion implantation, an ion beam is directed onto the
surface and one can adjust the dose of ion beam by adjusting the ion beam
current. Don’t have to control the entire ambient system.
• So, in ion implantation, one can attain a much better control of the total
impurity.
3. Low temperature
• Diffusion is a high temperature process, 800-1200 degree. In contrats, ion
implantation, is a room temperature process.
• So, not only the thermal budget is reduced in ion implantation, but also,
whether we do diffusion (or) ion implantation, most often we will be doing
selective doping, i.e. some portion of Si will have impurities and some
portion have to be masked against the impurities.
Ion implantation vs. Diffusion
• So, for diffusion, since it is a high temperature process, the only choice of
mask material is 𝑆𝑖𝑂2 . In case of ion implantation, however, since it is a
room temperature process, one can use photoresist as a mask.
• So, that gives better flexibility in ion implantation because before every
diffusion step, you have to grow oxide layer. In ion implantation, growing
oxide layer not required.
Ion implantation
• During ion implantation process, an energetic ion beam of dopants is
injected onto the semiconductor surface directed towards the semiconductor
surface and they have sufficient energy so as to penetrate the semiconductor
surface and go inside.
• Once the dopants have gone inside the surface, they start losing their energy.
They have started with some initial high energy ion beam and then once
they penetrated the semiconductor surface, they begin to lose their energy.
• This process of losing energy can be either by colliding with the lattice
atoms (or) elastic collision. They transfer their momentum to the lattice
atoms, in the process they lose some of the momentum, that is atoms gain
some momentum.
Ion implantation equipment
• This is a closed glass chamber/a tube in which high vacuum is created.
Ion implantation equipment
• This is a closed glass chamber/a tube in which high vacuum is created.
1. Ion source
• The ion-source contains dopants and ionization scheme.
• The most commonly used dopant source is
𝑔𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒 − 𝐵2 𝐻6 , 𝑃𝐻3 and 𝐵𝐹3 .
• There has to be some means to ionize the gaseous dopant.
• Ionization scheme – electron discharge is used to ionize the gaseous dopant, so
that we get the ion beam of the dopant – ionized dopant species.

The energetic ion beam will follow a particular path due to the first electrical lens
and not scattered.
2. Mass separator
• Ion-implantation is less prone to contamination.
• There is gaseous dopant and it is ionized. So, there are various ions in the
ion stream – possibility of having various types of ions in the ion stream.
How to select a particular ion species to come and impinge on the
semiconductor?
• Done through a mass-separating analyzer magnet called mass separator.
• Ion beam is a combination of a stream of charged particles with a particular
mass.
• In this, magnetic field is so adjusted that only the desired ions will pass
through the slit and other will be rejected.
2. Accelerator
• Used to accelerate the ion beam.
• Impart energy to the ion beam and accelerates it down the line.

3. Beam scanner
• The beam scanner basically consist of two pairs of deflection plates – one pair for
the x-axis and one pair for the y-axis
• Therefore, it is used to define whether the beam hits the target horizontally or
vertically.
Ion implantation equipment
4. Target chamber
• It has Si wafer holder onto which Si wafers are placed.
• Ion beam will strike the Si wafer.
• Rod will continuously rotate, so that the belt/holder will be rotated, so that
all the wafers will be exposed to the ion beam and ion implantation takes
place.
• The target chamber commonly includes automatic wafer handling facilities
to speed up the process of implanting many wafers per hour.
Ion stopping
• Once the dopants have gone inside the surface, they (dopants) start losing
their energy.
• This process of losing their energy can be either by colliding with the lattice
atoms, elastic collision.
• So, in this process, they lose some of the momentum and the lattice atoms
gain some momentum.
• This is the mechanism that is responsible for the damage during ion-
implantation, because the energetic ion beam is imparting some of its
energy to the lattice atoms and if that energy is high enough, then the lattice
atoms can get displaced from its original site and that is the defects are
created.
• So, this is called as the Nuclear Stopping. – due to collision of the ions with
lattice atoms.
• Nuclear stopping – when the energetic ions loses energy by colliding with
the lattice atoms, losing energy to the lattice atoms and in the process
creating point defects like vacancies and interstitials.

Electron Stopping
• Now, the other process is, where the energetic ion beam supplies the energy
to the bound electrons.
• In the process, the bound electrons become free electrons, because they gain
energy and this is called as Electron Stopping.
• This process is not really responsible for defect generation.
In this process, only transient generation of electrons is taking place.
Nuclear stopping – is the process which is primarily responsible for defect
creation, because in this process, the lattice atoms get displaced.
• So, in both the processes, ion is losing energy.

Equation for energy loss (or) rate of energy loss is given by,
𝑑𝐸
− = 𝑁(𝑆𝑛 𝐸 + 𝑆𝑒 𝐸 )
𝑑𝑥
𝐸 = energy
𝑥 = distance
𝑁 = number of target atoms/unit volume/𝑐𝑚3
(−) : as it is energy loss
• Whether the ion is losing energy by nuclear stopping (or) electron stopping,
in both the cases, it is interacting with the target atoms (Si in this case).
• SP, obviously, the loss is going to be proportional to the number of target
atoms available.
𝑆𝑛 = as a function of energy and 𝑆𝑒 = as a function of energy – refer to the
two stopping processes, respectively.
𝑆𝑛 = for nuclear stopping
𝑆𝑒 = for electron stopping
• So, the rate of energy loss is proportional to both the total number of target
atoms as well as sum of these 2 stopping mechanism, both as a function of
ion energy.
Range
• How far the dopant has gone inside the semiconductor in ion-implantation is
called as Range, R.
𝑅
Range → 𝑅 = ‫׬‬0 𝑑𝑥
𝑅 = is the point when the energy is falling to 0.
′0′ = is the point when the ion beam is just entering the semiconductor, i.e.
its energy is 𝐸0 , which is the initial value of energy
Range – is the distance traversed during which ion energy has fallen from its
initial energy to zero.
1 𝐸0 𝑑𝐸
= ‫׬‬ …………. equation for Range of ions
𝑁 0 𝑆𝑛 𝐸 +𝑆𝑒 𝐸
Projected range, 𝑅𝑃
• Now, in Range – this is how the beam is coming and ion can come to rest
anywhere in this region.
• What are we interested in? if we talk about creating a p-n junction. What are
we interested in? the depth of the junction.
Projected range – the distance travelled by the ion in the direction of the
incident ion beam ( average).

< < <

𝑅𝑃
Metallization
• Conducting films are required to provide interconnection between contacts on
devices and between devices and the outside world.

• Figure 1 below shows a MOSFET. In this, central region is called the gate. In this
region, the substrate silicon is isolated from the metal electrode by an insulating
layer which is generally a thin SiO2 layer.

• The metal electrode, generally a polysilicon layer is called a gate electrode and it
controls the working of the MOSFET as an OFF or ON device.

• The work function of the metal plays an important role in determining the voltage
required to activate the device.
Metallization

Figure 1: A typical MOSFET:

a) Cross section
b) Schematic representation
c) Symbolic representation
Metallization
• The two identical regions neighboring the gate region, are called the source
and the drain. The metal contacting these regions is generally Aluminum.

• The metal work functions again plays an important role in determining the
current flow characteristics in these regions.
Properties of Metallization for ICs
1. Low resistivity
2. Easy to form
3. Easy to etch for pattern generation
4. Should be stable in oxidizing ambient
5. Surface smoothness
6. Should not contaminate device, wafer or working apparatus
7. Low contact resistance, minimal junction penetration
8. Stability throughout processing
Metallization Applications
Primary metallization applications can therefore be divided into three groups:
• GATE
• CONTACT
• INTERCONNECTS

• Interconnection metallization, which interconnects thousands of MOSFETs

or Bipolar devices is generally the same as gate metallization.

• Polysilicon has been the form of metallization used for gate and
interconnection MOS devices.
Metallization Applications
• All metallization directly in contact with semiconductor is called contact
metallization.

• Aluminum has been used as the contact metal on devices.

Metallization Applications
• Gates and Interconnection: Gates and Interconnection metallization plays
two important roles.
• First, it controls the speed of the circuit by virtue of the resistance of the
interconnection runners.
• The RC time constant of these runners is proportional to parameters as
𝑅𝑠 𝐿2
ൗ𝑑𝑂𝑋 . Here, 𝑅𝑠 is ohm-per-square (sheet) resistance, L is the length of
the runner and 𝑑𝑂𝑋 is the oxide thickness.
𝜌
𝑅𝑠 = ; 𝜌 = 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦
𝑑𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑦−𝑆𝑖
𝜖𝑜𝑥 𝑅𝑠 𝐿2 𝑑𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑦−𝑆𝑖 = polysilicon thickness
𝑅𝐶 = 𝜖𝑜𝑥 = permittivity of SiO2
𝑑𝑂𝑋 𝜖𝑜𝑥
= dielectric constant of SiO2 = 3.9
𝜖0
𝜖0 = permittivity of free space = 8.86 𝑋 10−14 𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑠/𝑐𝑚
• Second, metallization also controls the flat-band voltage 𝑉𝐹𝐵 .
• Flat-band voltage is the voltage required to balance the work function
difference between metal and semiconductor so that a flat-band condition is
maintained in semiconductor.
depletion layer
Metallization Applications
• Ohmic Contacts: A good ohmic contact, usually formed by depositing a
metal on the semiconductor (when work function of the metal is smaller
than the work function of the semiconductor), does not perturb device
characteristics and is stable both electrically and mechanically.

1. When metal comes in contact with S/C, two contacts are formed. Ohmic
and Schottky
2. Ohmic contact – obey ohms law – current flows both direction – low
resistance - from S/C to metal & metal to S/C - no potential barrier at
interface – used to supply current to the semiconductor devices. Schottky
– rectifying contact – current flow is in one direction. Switching &
rectifying devices
Metallization Applications
Here, the purpose of metallization is to create a ohmic contact – so that
current flows in both direction and for that an important property that has to
be maintained is the work function - ∅𝑠 > ∅𝑚

What is ohmic contact in VLSI?

Ohmic contact is a non-rectifying junction which has low resistance and
provides current conduction from metal to semiconductor and vice versa.
A good ohmic contact, usually formed by depositing a meal on the S/C. does
not perturb device
Metallization Choices for ICs
Why Aluminum preferred for Metallization?
1. The ease of processing
2. Aluminum's ability to reduce native SiO2, which is always present on
silicon wafers exposed to atmosphere
3. Its low resistivity
Deposition Processes
There are two types of deposition processes that are used:
1. Chemical vapour deposition
2. Physical vapour deposition

Advantages of CVD process:

1. Excellent step coverage
2. Large throughput
3. Low-temperature processing
• Tungsten and Molybdenum have been very successfully deposited using
LPCVD
Deposition Methods (same as seen in Thin film deposition)
Physical vapour deposition methods:
1. There are two PVD methods : 1. Evaporation and 2. Sputtering

In both the cases, the formation of a deposit on a substrate consists of three

steps:
1. converting the condensed phase (generally a solid) into a gaseous or vapor
phase.
2. Transportation the gaseous phase from source to the substrate.
Evaporation PVD
Sputtering PVD Deposition
• Sputtering is a PVD process in which, ejection of atoms occurs from a solid
target by high energy ion bombardment. These atoms are then condensed on
the substrate to form a film.
• Sputtering process, unlike evaporation, are very well controlled and are
generally applicable to all materials – metals, alloys, semiconductors and
insulators.
• In sputtering, Argon, a rare gas element is used for the incident charged
particles, due to its: high sputtering rate and inter nature - unlikely to react
with other elements.
Sputtering PVD Deposition