SBIR-STTR Award

Leadership in every aspect of Information Technology (IT) has been a key element of U.S. economic dominance. At the brink of the 21st century, applications in medicine, communication, military and even artificial intelligence are awaiting the era of giga-hertz technology. In order to achieve the needed performance, new High K dielectric materials and deposition techniques are essential for the pursuance of the development of memory cells and advanced CMOS gate insulators. The SIA National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductor (NTRS) has alerted the development community of these shortcommings, which may seriously affect the progress of the electronics industry. This program proposes to demonstrate the feasibility of a high purity novel method for deposition of new high-K dielectrics integrated with metal films. The design intent includes high reliability (commercial maintainability) features at the outset. The proof-of-concept provides a critical capability for engineering advanced integrated dielectrics with already developed metal barriers for the realization of integrated metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structures. The deposition method enables processes for controlling dielectrics at the atomic level, while meeting 0.1-0.05 um generation needs (through the year 2012) for uniform, conformal deposition on large area wafers using low process temperature. Anticipated Benefits and

Potential Commercial Applications:
An all ALD based solution for integrated MIM films provides a best scenario solution for achieving the technological objectives relating to memory density and gate dielectrics for the industry. When successful, the solution will serve the period of the SIA roadmap spanning 2001-2012. This SBIR enables the availability of development and manufacturing equipment for the industry.