Damascene integration of copper and ultra-low-k xerogel for high performance interconnects

Copper has been successfully integrated in ultra-low k xerogel in a damascene structure. Resistance was shown to decrease by 30% with lower capacitance, relative to an aluminum/oxide baseline. For an equivalent resistance, an aluminum/oxide architecture would have 29% higher capacitance than that demonstrated here. Copper in xerogel trenches shows great promise as the next generation metallization system.