Sputtering is a thin-film manufacturing process widely used across many industries including semiconductor processing, precision optics, and surface finishing.  Sputtered thin films have excellent uniformity, density and adhesion making them ideal for multiple applications.

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Types of Sputtering Methods

Sputtering can be described in a number of ways: cathodic sputtering, diode sputtering, RF or DC sputtering, ion-beam sputtering, reactive sputtering &#; but all of these are essentially describing the same physical process.

The Sputtering Process

The target (source) material and substrate (destination) are placed into a vacuum chamber and a voltage is applied between them so that the target is the cathode and the substrate is attached to the anode.

A plasma is created by ionizing a sputtering gas, usually an inert gas such as argon or xenon. Inert gases are typically employed as the sputtering gas because they tend not to react with the target material or combine with any process gases and because they produce higher sputtering and deposition rates due to their high molecular weight.

The sputtering process occurs when the target material is bombarded with the sputtering gas and the resulting energy transfer causes target particles to escape, travel and deposit on the substrate as a film.

Key Criteria for Effective Sputtering

For the sputtering process to produce an effective coating, a number of criteria must be met. First, ions of sufficient energy must be created and directed towards the surface of the target to eject atoms from the material. The interaction of the ions and the target are determined by the velocity and energy of the ions. Since ions are charged particles, electric and magnetic fields can control these parameters. The process begins when a stray electron near the cathode is accelerated towards the anode and collides with a neutral gas atom converting it to a positively charged ion.

Second, ejected atoms must be able to move freely towards the substrate with minimal resistance to their movement. This is why sputter coating is a vacuum process. At too low pressures, there aren&#;t enough collisions between atoms and electrons to sustain a plasma. At too high pressures, there are so many collisions that electrons do not have enough time to gather energy between collisions to be able to ionize the atoms.

Application and Introduction of Sputtering Target for Semiconductor Chip

views, Updated: -09-17

Semiconductor chips have high technical requirements and high prices for sputtered targets. Their requirements for sputtered targets' purity and technology are higher than flat-panel displays, solar cells, and other applications. Semiconductor chips set extremely strict standards for the purity of sputtering target metal materials, internal microstructure, and other aspects. If the impurity content of the sputtering target is too high, the film formed can't meet the required electrical performance. In the sputtering process, it is easy to form particles on the wafer, resulting in a short circuit or damage of the circuit, which seriously affect the performance of the film. Generally speaking, chip manufacturing requires the highest purity of sputtering target metal, which is usually 99.% (5N5) or more, while flat-panel display and solar cell require 99.999% (5N) or 99.995% (4N5) or more, respectively.

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Semiconductor sputtering target application

The sputtering target is used for the fabrication of the barrier layer and the packaging metal wiring layer. In the wafer manufacturing process, the target material is mainly used to make the wafer conductive layer, barrier layer, and metal grid. In the chip packaging process, the sputtering target material is used to generate the metal layer under the bump, wiring layer, and other metal materials. Although the amount of target materials used in wafer manufacturing and chip packaging is small, according to SEMI statistics, the cost of target materials in wafer manufacturing and packaging process accounts for about 3%. However, the quality of sputtering target materials directly affects the uniformity and performance of conductive layer and barrier layer, and further affects chip transmission speed and stability, so sputtering target materials are the core raw materials for semiconductor production one of the materials.

Sputtering target for semiconductor

In the process of wafer fabrication, sputtering targets for semiconductors are mainly used for the fabrication of the conductive layer, the barrier layer, and metal grid, which are mainly used for aluminum, titanium, copper, tantalum, and other metals. AEM Deposition, as a professional sputtering target manufacturer, provides pure metal sputtering targets suitable for semiconductors. See the table below:

The metal target materials for chip packaging are similar to wafer fabrication, including copper, aluminum, and titanium. Among them, the main metal targets used in the fabrication of the conducting layer are aluminum sputtering target and copper sputtering target. The main metal targets used in the barrier layer are tantalum sputtering target and titanium sputtering target. The barrier layer has two main functions: one is to block and insulate to prevent the conductive layer metal from diffusing into the main material silicon of the wafer. The other is used as an adhesion for bonding metal silicon materials. Aluminum and titanium are used as thin-film materials for conductor and barrier layer for wafers above 110 nm technology node, copper and tantalum are used as thin-film materials for conductor and barrier layer for wafers below 110 nm technology node. With the reduction of the wafer manufacturing process, the proportion of copper target, tantalum target, and titanium target for metal grid continue to increase in the future.

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