Article Semi-damascene
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Semi-damascene metallization: inflection point in back-end-of-line processing?

A cost-effective metallization scheme to address the resistance-capacitance (RC) delay at beyond 20nm metal pitches for multiple generations

Summary

More than five years ago, imec proposed semi-damascene as a new module approach to address the increasing RC delay concerns related to Cu dual-damascene in advanced technology nodes.

When used in combination with a patternable metal such as Ru, semi-damascene promises to be RC, area, cost and power efficient – offering an interconnect scaling path.

This article reviews the value proposition, summarizes challenges and potential solutions of state of the art Ru-based semi-damascene and calls upon the academic and industrial community to collaboratively clear the path towards industrial adoption.