Soon-yeon Park

Rugged Metal Electrode (RME) for High Density Memory Devices

Rugged metal electrode (RME) was suggested and evaluated as a bottom electrode of high-density memory capacitors. Rugged ruthenium films (RME-Ru) were successfully fabricated through volume shrinking of ruthenium oxide films under reduction ambient (RuOx+H2=Ru+H2O). The effective surface area of RME-Ru films was significantly enlarged due to the formation of wrinkle on its surface, which resulted in low SiO2 equivalent thickness (Tox) as low as ~ 6 A with Ru/TaOx(110 A)/RME-Ru capacitor. It is believed that RME technique will be very useful to realize and extend MIM (Metal-Insulator-Metal) capacitor era in the mass production of high density memory devices.

Evaluation of Aluminum Oxide Thin Film in Magnetic Tunneling Junction Utilizing Scanning Probe Microscopy

We attempted to evaluate the role of tunneling oxide in a magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) cell using scanning probe microscopy (SPM). In particular, we focused on the variation in the thickness uniformity of aluminum oxide thin film, thereby correlating the topology with its current image. The local I-V measurement revealed that a preferred current conduction through thinner aluminum oxide exists. The cross-sectional image confirmed that the variation in the thickness of aluminum oxide creates weak points for current conduction. Finally, we could obtain a tenfold the MR value in the MTJ cell by improving the thickness uniformity of the aluminum oxide thin film.

Development of CVD-Ru/Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5//CVD-Ru capacitor with concave structure for multigigabit-scale DRAM generation

RIR(Ru/Crystalline-Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/Ru) capacitor with concave structure was studied for the application into multigigabit-scale DRAM device. In this work, several novel technologies were successfully developed to solve current issues in the fabrication of RIR concave capacitor; such as 1) two-step deposition of Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ films 2) formation of Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ spacer 3) new separation process of Ru storage node using maskless etch-back method 4) H/sub 2/ pre-annealing and 5) Ar plasma pre-treatment on Ru bottom electrode. The RIR concave capacitor (design rule/spl sim/0.12 /spl mu/m, node height/spl sim/0.85 /spl mu/m) fabricated with these novel technologies showed excellent electrical properties (25fF/cell, 1fA/cell at /spl plusmn/ 1V), which indicates that RIR structure is the one of the most promising candidate for the next generation DRAM capacitor.