A pretreatment technique to improvement the ashing resistance of low k spin-on-polymer (SOP)

The oxygen plasma via resists strip process cause significant damage to organic SOP, thus limiting its inter-level dielectric application. A simple treatment technology using reactive ion is proposed to reform the SOP surface. The reactive ion modification of the SOP can improve the resistance towards oxygen plasma. This is owing to the carbon atom absence in the SOP's surface area. The measurements of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), stress, thickness variation, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) cross-sectional view for gap filling and dielectric constant show that SOP with reactive ion treatment (RIT) has better quality for non-etch-back process than SOP without RIT.