Copper ECD in beta test

07/01/1998

Copper ECD in beta test

CuTek, a San Jose, CA, startup firm working to commercialize electrochemical copper deposition (ECD) technology, says it has successfully filled 0.25-?m, 8:1 aspect ratio contact holes with no voids or seams. The company is about to go to beta test with its as-yet unnamed cluster ECD tool, and hopes to begin offering the tool for purchase in early 1999, competing with offerings from Semitool Inc.

Brian Stickney, marketing manager at CuTek, said his company`s tool is designed to be a second-generation electroplating tool. "We`ve designed it from the point of view of the process engineer, as opposed to someone from the plating or PWB arena," he said. "It has a large process window, reduced wafer handling, fewer particulate sources, and lower cost of ownership." The system is designed to provide throughput equal to the PVD tools that will deposit barrier and seed layers, or about 50 to 75 wafers/hr; Stickney said this capability "will be proved out in beta." No price has been set.

Beta test partners in the US and abroad have been signed up, said Stickney. He noted that copper technology is attracting interest from a broad range of chipmakers, including "people who you would think would have no reason to be interested."

"We had thought it would be mostly microprocessor makers, at 180- or 150-nm geometries," said Stickney. "But other people are looking at it for 180 nm and even 0.25 ?m, for help with their own particular problems." He explained that while high-speed logic can be built with aluminum interconnect, copper can simplify the process, and also reduce or eliminate the need to change existing transistor designs. "You can modify your transistors, or put in a new back-end-of-line process - which is easier in the long run?"

CuTek has about 22 employees, including president Chiu H. Ting, a veteran of IBM, Intel, AMD, and SEMATECH, where he has worked on copper and low-k dielectric issues. Stickney said the venture-funded firm has adequate financial resources to take it through its next phase of work, but declined to reveal names of investors. - P.N.D.