Highly thermal-stable, plasma-polymerized BCB polymer film

A new plasma-enhanced organic monomer-vapour polymerization (plasma polymerization) method has been developed. It was used to make a divinyl siloxane bis-benzocyclobutene (DVS-BCB) polymer film for Cu dual-damascene interconnects that had high thermal stability and a low dielectric constant, k = 2.6. The method consists of the vaporization of organic monomers, transportation of monomers in the gas phase, and polymerization by plasma to make the polymer film. The method eliminates polymer oxidation of DVS-BCB during the polymerization in high vacuum, which improves the film's thermal stability. The thermal stability of plasma-polymerized BCB (p-BCB) exceeded 400°C because of the higher deposition temperature, and the film had a high resistance to Cu diffusion at 400°C annealing. The narrow-pitched Cu/BCB damascene lines showed a 35% reduction in line capacitance compared with Cu/SiO 2 ones. The p-BCB is shown to be a strong candidate for Cu/low- k interconnects.