The metal in the chip
Metal materials play an important role in the evolution of chip technology. In the process of shrinking the size of advanced processes, precious metals and their alloy materials play a key role in realizing small line width, low resistivity and high adhesion. After entering the 21st century, about 40 elements have been added to chip materials, of which about 90% are precious metals and transition metals.
Precious metal is one of the drivers of advanced chip technology. Intel has recently introduced antimony and ruthenium as metal contacts, which makes the capacitance smaller and breaks through the limitation of silicon. Previously, Intel took the lead in introducing cobalt materials into some interconnection layers of 10nm process nodes, which improved the electron mobility by 5-10 times and reduced the path resistance by 2 times.
Intel is not alone in the exploration of interconnected materials. Applied material is one of the first semiconductor technology manufacturers to use cobalt as wire material to replace traditional copper and tungsten. Grofonder also used cobalt instead of tungsten in the 7nm process. At present, Samsung and TSMC are also actively developing new interconnection materials. It is expected that in the near future, a new generation of interconnection materials, such as cobalt alloy, ruthenium and rhodium, will be on the scene, building a bridge for advanced process chips.
How to connect the roads in "Chip City"
"If a chip is compared to a city, then the transistor is its core area, which is responsible for the operation of information, and the interconnection layer is equivalent to the road of the city responsible for the traffic between information and the outside world." In an interview with the reporter of China Electronic News, Dr. Sheng Haifeng, a senior engineer of Magnesium Light, made such a vivid metaphor.
Sheng Haifeng believes that under Moore’s Law, when the transistors in the core area are getting smaller and denser, the road will become narrower and denser. When the density of the core area reaches a certain level, the transportation capacity of the road, that is, the RC delay of the interconnection layer, becomes the bottleneck of the speed improvement and power consumption reduction of the whole chip. In this case, the metal material of the interconnection layer needs to be upgraded to speed up the "road" of the transistor core area.
The continuation of Moore’s law is closely related to the evolution of interconnected materials. As the technical director, Chen Wang, a researcher from Tsinghua University, has worked for Intel and Fanlin Semiconductor, a chip equipment manufacturer, and has conducted in-depth research on high-end chip materials and advanced chip manufacturing and architecture. Chen Wang explained to the reporter of "China Electronic News" that the interconnection material is actually the wire for the interconnection and transmission of electrical signals between the front-end transistor layer and the back-end external circuit layer.
The enhancement of quantum effect is a big challenge for interconnected materials. Chen Wang told reporters that at present, the transistor has entered the sub-10nm scale in several geometric dimensions, and the quantum effect of materials has begun to be significant. If the transistor continues to be miniaturized, it will meet the challenges of materials, processes and device structures. As the core of connecting the front-end transistor layer and the outermost package ball layer, the miniaturization of interconnection materials at the middle and back ends is also facing the challenge of enhancing quantum effect.
Copper and "Damascus Process"
In the 1990s, the semiconductor manufacturing process entered the era of 0.18 micron, and the aluminum interconnection technology in the latter part met with a huge bottleneck. To this end, major semiconductor manufacturing companies in the world are looking for metals that can replace aluminum. Because copper is not expensive, has good conductivity and is easy to deposit, everyone thinks of copper in unison. However, because copper can’t be dry etched, the back-end interconnection problem can’t be solved for a long time.
In search of inspiration, an IBM engineer came to Damascus, which is known as the "garden on earth". By chance, he saw a craftsman who was engaged in metal inlaying in a remote corner.
When observing the craftsman’s mosaic technology, engineers keep seeing such scenes in their minds: carving is similar to etching, and mosaic is similar to deposition. He suddenly realized that copper can be deposited although it cannot be etched. Similar to Damascus process, engineers can etch the pattern film for metal wires on the dielectric layer first, and then fill the metal to realize multi-layer metal interconnection without etching the metal layer. In this way, the engineer successfully solved the technical problem of copper interconnection, and named this process Damascus process.
The times are progressing and the line width is shrinking. In 2018, companies such as Applied Materials used cobalt as wire material to replace traditional copper and tungsten wires in some areas.
Talking about the intergenerational changes of aluminum, copper and cobalt wires, Sheng Haifeng told reporters that copper replaces aluminum because it has better conductivity and can reduce the resistance in RC delay. In many logic chips, copper completely replaces aluminum, that is, all interconnection layers are upgraded to copper. But the substitution of cobalt for copper is different. Cobalt only has the advantage of conductivity to copper when the interconnect layer is very narrow, so cobalt only replaces copper in metal 0 layer (M0) and metal 1 layer (M1), and copper will continue to be used in other interconnect layers.
From cobalt to ruthenium and rhodium
Intel took the lead in introducing cobalt materials into some interconnection layers of 10nm process nodes, which improved the electron mobility by 5-10 times and reduced the path resistance by 2 times. The application material is one of the first semiconductor manufacturers to use cobalt as wire material to replace traditional copper and tungsten. Grofonder also used cobalt instead of tungsten in the 7nm fabrication process.
How to keep the resistivity at a low level at the scale of 20nm or even less is the core of the research and development of interconnection materials. Chen Wang said that although the introduction of cobalt has brought many problems in yield and reliability, it is a big leap in the field of interconnection materials, breaking through the existing copper material system and improving the overall performance of 10nm chips.
More importantly, the introduction of cobalt makes a good technical reserve for the later smaller node technology, and it is expected that the performance of the node will be improved more significantly after 7nm.
Interconnection materials are evolving towards ultra-thin, low resistivity, no barrier layer and low delay. At present, Samsung and TSMC are actively developing new interconnection materials. Chen Wang said that in the near future, a new generation of interconnection materials such as cobalt alloy, ruthenium and rhodium are also expected to appear.
At the same time, interconnection lines without diffusion barrier, even embedded interconnection rails under the transistor layer, are also the direction to solve the challenge of interconnection materials.
Introducing new metal materials to help advanced process
Precious metal materials play an important role in the evolution of chip technology. Chi Xiannian, an expert in semiconductor industry, told the reporter of China Electronic News that semiconductor chips are developing towards the trend of small size, high speed and low power consumption, which requires low contact resistance of contact points, good thermal stability and adhesion in a wide temperature range, and higher requirements are also put forward for lateral uniformity and thin diffusion layer.
Therefore, precious metals and their alloy materials play a key role in realizing small line width, low resistivity, high adhesion and low contact resistance in the process of shrinking the size of advanced processes.
In the process of continuous improvement of chip technology, the main challenge faced by transistors is to suppress short channel effect. Sheng Haifeng said that at this stage, the FinFET process is extended to 3nm at most. GAAFET technology is the main direction at nodes below 3nm. GAAFET mainly uses traditional materials, and the biggest challenge is process precision control.
Facing this challenge, the introduction of new metal materials is more critical. Sheng Haifeng told reporters that Samsung used lanthanum doping to improve Vt (threshold voltage). For the interconnect layer, the introduction of new materials is not only the interconnect layer metal cobalt, but also the barrier layer between the interconnect layer metal and the interconnect layer insulation layer. The function of barrier layer is to bond interconnect metal and insulating layer, and to improve the reliability of electron migration of interconnect layer. Tantalum and ruthenium are new elements that have been used and are being explored in the barrier layer.
At present, the horn of the global 2nm chip process war has sounded. In 2011, FinFET technology was introduced into 22nm node to replace planar transistor; New processes such as GAA and CFET are expected to be gradually introduced around the 3nm node.
These processes will involve a lot of material problems such as doping control and strain control. Chen Wang told reporters that at the sub-1nm node, the challenges of related materials become more and more prominent, and the quantum effect of materials will play a significant role. At that time, the quantum effect control of silicon-based materials, the atomic processing of materials and the single electron fluctuation of devices will profoundly challenge the existing material system and manufacturing technology. It is imperative to introduce new material systems, such as layered semiconductors, new principle devices and new processing technologies.
"It is reported that two-dimensional semiconductor materials are expected to help break through the advanced process of 2 nanometers due to their small size." Wan Qing, a professor at the School of Electronic Science and Engineering of Nanjing University, told the reporter of China Electronic News.
90% of the newly added chip materials are metal.
Precious metals have excellent electrical conductivity, stability and thermal conductivity, and are the key core materials in the semiconductor industry. After entering the 21st century, about 40 elements have been added to the chip materials, of which about 90% are precious metals and transition metals, which shows the importance of the application of metal materials in the chip field.
Metal materials used in the field of chip manufacturing have a higher "threshold". Chi Xiannian told reporters that the contact resistance and nano-scale adhesion should be considered in chip-level metal materials, so metals such as copper and cobalt can only be used in chip manufacturing after they are made into high-purity targets or alloy targets. At present, Hershey in Germany, Honeywell International Co., Ltd. in the United States and Tocao Co., Ltd. in Japan mainly produce chip-level copper and cobalt.
Affected by the situation in Russia and Ukraine, palladium has become one of the hottest precious metals at present. Russia’s palladium production accounts for about 40% of the global total, and palladium exports account for 35%. Palladium can be used in semiconductor components such as sensors and is also one of the important raw materials for chip packaging.
He Jinjiang, deputy general manager of Youyan Yijin New Materials Co., Ltd. told the reporter of China Electronic News that palladium and silver palladium alloy are important materials for preparing MLCC capacitors and resonators; In the packaging process of semiconductor, palladium alloy and palladium-plated wire are mainly used as wire bonding for electronic packaging instead of gold wire; In addition, palladium can be used as palladium alloy solder for precise connection of components. Based on the characteristics of palladium, new materials and applications are also being developed.
Precious metal materials have four main applications in the field of chips. Chen Wang told the reporter of China Electronic News that the first is the interconnected materials. For example, early aluminum to copper, to Al-Cu alloy and tungsten, and the latest cobalt and ruthenium under research.
The second is the metal gate material. Since Intel introduced the high dielectric-metal-gate transistor structure at the 45nm node in 2007, materials such as tantalum, tantalum nitride, titanium nitride and TiAlN have been widely used, and metal silicide contact has also undergone an evolution from titanium, cobalt and nickel to metal silicide system.
The third is metal barrier adhesion layer materials, such as titanium/titanium nitride, tantalum/tantalum nitride and other barrier adhesion layer materials commonly used in chip manufacturing and advanced packaging.
The fourth is metal materials for back-end packaging, including traditional lead-based alloys and lead-free antimony, tin, silver and indium-based alloys. In addition, the later substrate interconnection also involves a large number of precious metal materials. Among them, the nano-bottom interconnection metal, metal gate material and barrier adhesion layer material at the front end of the chip are all the frontiers of metal material research and development. Therefore, how to maintain the characteristics of high conductivity, low electromigration, uniform crystallinity, high thermal diffusivity and process integration at small scale has become the research focus of chip metal materials and the material bottleneck of the next generation of high-performance chips.
Metal price increases have little impact on chips.
Important precious metals in integrated circuits mainly include gold, silver and platinum. At present, the changes in the situation in Russia and Ukraine have had an impact on the global supply of non-ferrous metals and precious metals such as aluminum, nickel, palladium and platinum, which has led to an increase in the prices of related products and frequent fluctuations in the precious metals market. As the whole semiconductor industry chain is closed to some extent, the supply chain problem of the whole industry chain has been highlighted by the impact of COVID-19 epidemic in the early stage. Many people in the industry are worried that the fluctuation of the precious metal market is likely to further disturb the stability of the supply chain of the chip industry chain.
Precious metal is one of the important semiconductor materials, and its price fluctuation will have a certain impact on the cost of chip manufacturing. Chi Xiannian told the reporter of China Electronic News that with the fluctuation of precious metal prices, the cost of chip manufacturing will also change. For example, in the case of unstable precious metal supply chain, the purchase price of precious metals will rise accordingly, which will lead to a simultaneous increase in the price of finished chips.
However, due to the small proportion of precious metals used in chips and the small actual demand, Wan Qing believes that the fluctuation of precious metal prices has little impact on the chip industry.
Take palladium as an example. The increase in palladium price will lead to an increase in the cost of the semiconductor industry, but considering the small demand for palladium for a single semiconductor product, the increase in palladium price has little impact on enterprises with high raw material inventory water level. In addition, precious metals such as palladium can be replaced by other precious metals, so it is unlikely to face such a serious problem as supply failure.
In Chen Wang’s view, the impact of precious metal market fluctuation on the semiconductor industry chain needs to be viewed from both short-term and long-term perspectives. Chen Wang told reporters that the overall cost of the chip lies in the manufacturing cost, which mainly comes from the process cost. Precious metals are indispensable in chip manufacturing. If the international unstable factors are increasing, the shortage of a certain key metal material will continue to impact the chip price in the short term. However, due to the relatively low proportion of precious metals in the overall material consumption and cost of the chip industry, the fluctuation of precious metal prices has limited impact on the chip industry chain in the short term.
In the long run, the post-epidemic era and the continuous changes in the situation in Russia and Ukraine may bring some potential unstable factors. Chen Wang believes that the chip’s long supply chain characteristics also determine its own vulnerability. Unstable factors caused by the complex international situation may further test the chip-related industrial chain, such as affecting the layout and integration of materials, equipment and design industrial chains in the chip industry, and adversely affecting the layout and breakthrough of overall industrial optimization.
The superposition of various factors, such as the COVID-19 epidemic, makes the semiconductor supply chain in a relatively unstable state as a whole. Sheng Haifeng told the China Electronic News that the situation in Russia and Ukraine will definitely have an impact on the semiconductor supply chain, but this impact may not be limited to precious metals. For example, Ukraine is the main supplier of neon, and the complicated changes in the situation in Russia and Ukraine may affect the supply of neon. (Reporter Zhang Yiyi)