EBSD study on microstructure and texture of high purity tantalum sputtering target materials

EBSD(electron backscattering diffraction) technique is a method to determine crystal structure, orientation and related information based on the analysis of the diffraction inulae formed by the electron beam excited on the surface of the inclined sample under scanning electron microscopy (SEM). At present, EBSD and EDS have been integrated to study the texture and grain orientation of most polycrystalline materials and used for strain, phase identification and distribution state determination. In recent years, EBSD technology has been widely used in the field of microstructure characterization of materials due to its advantages such as simple sample preparation, excellent acquisition of submicron microstructure information and rapid statistical analysis of crystallographic orientation information in large areas.

High purity tantalum target material used for silicon wafer in the barrier layer of copper interconnect, with the great scale development of integrated circuit, in the deep submicron process (0.18 mu m and below), copper will gradually replace aluminum metallized wiring on the silicon wafer materials, high purity Cu sputtering target material to more applications, makes high pure Ta sputtering target materials greatly scale integrated circuit manufacturing with commonly used materials. The results show that the grain size and orientation of the target material have great influence on the sputtering performance, and even directly affect the quality of the final sputtering film. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to study and analyze the microstructure and texture of the sputtering target material.

Research high pure Ta sputtering target materials, semiconductor technology in China to 90 nm to 65 nm copper and tantalum combination wiring advanced technology to provide a strong guarantee, as well as the "great scale integrated circuit manufacturing equipment and complete sets of technology" provides key materials, will drive technology promotion of related industries such as semiconductor industry chain in China and benefit greatly increased, so great research value.

By using EBSD technology, different regions of high-purity Ta sputtering target were characterized by microzone orientation information, and the grain size, texture and grain boundary orientation difference distribution of Ta target were analyzed. The study of EBSD in different areas of high-purity Ta target after sputtering indicates that EBSD technology is an effective means to detect and analyze the uniformity of microstructure, texture composition and grain orientation difference distribution of sputtering target material, and provides technical support for characterization and analysis of the microstructure and texture changes of target material before and after sputtering.