Thermal wave analysis of the formation of titanium disilicide on submicron lines

In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility of an in-line, non-destructive method, thermal wave imaging, to characterize the formation of titanium disilicide on narrow lines. The observation of thermal-wave signals and images allows us to distinguish the formation and structure of the metastable, high-resistivity, C49 phase and the equilibrium, low-resistivity C54 phase of the disilicide. Patterned wafers, having linewidths in the range of 1.5 to 0.4 micrometer were used to study the effect of rapid thermal anneal conditions and linewidth on disilicide formation. The transformation temperature of C49 to paper we demonstrate the feasibility of an in-line, non-destructive method, thermal wave imaging, to characterize C54 disilicide during a 20 second isothermal anneal was found to increase by more than 50 degrees Celsius when decreasing the linewidth to 0.4 micrometer.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.