Drastic reliability improvement using H2O2/UV treatment of HfO2 for heterogeneous integration

Abstract

For heterogeneous integration, the heat cycle constraint limits the available number of options for the process of fabricating high-quality reliable high-k dielectrics, for example, post-deposition annealing and high-temperature deposition. To solve this problem, we examine the effects of H2O2/UV treatment on the reliability characteristics of low-temperature-grown HfO2 via atomic layer deposition, wherein it is treated with a minimal post-deposition heat cycle. The leakage current and time zero dielectric breakdown characteristics of the H2O2/UV treated Hf02 are drastically improved without having applied the post-deposition heat cycle, compared with those of the control group that undergoes O2 post-deposition annealing. The proposed process is a promising method to improve the quality of dielectrics for heterogeneous integration.