ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RUTHENIUM LINES WITH A CROSS-SECTIONAL AREA LESS THAN 1000 nm

As the IC scales, it becomes necessary to form lines with a width of less than 20 nm at the lower levels of the metallization system. Copper at such sizes ceases to meet the requirements for RC delays and resistance to electromigration. Therefore, it is necessary to look for alternative materials to replace copper, which will provide higher resistance to electromigration and lower resistance of the lines. The most promising candidate is Ru. In this study, test structures with ruthenium lines were obtained. For this purpose, such methods of creating structures as plasma-stimulated deposition from the gas phase, plasma-stimulated atomic layer deposition, magnetron sputtering, electron beam lithography, and plasma chemical etching were used. Spectroscopic ellipsometry and scanning electron microscopy were used to control the creation and investigation of the resulting structures. The electrical characteristics of the structures were measured and tested.