Surface Preparation Products

As interconnect structures migrate toward smaller feature sizes, issues involving surface preparation become one of the primary barriers to the extendibility and reproducibility of deposition processes. Residual contamination from improperly prepared surfaces can affect the deposition and adhesion of subsequent metal or dielectric layers. In addition, the transition to low-k dielectrics is driving a complete change in surface preparation technology, since most current surface preparation processes are incompatible with these low-k materials. As a result, surface preparation technology is becoming a critical device performance enabler in sub-90 nm devices.