The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while feature size (i.e., the smallest component that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. Such advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs. For these advances, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are developed.
As the density of semiconductor devices increases and the size of circuit elements becomes smaller, the resistance capacitance (RC) delay time increasingly dominates circuit performance. To reduce the RC delay, there is a desire to use low-k dielectrics. The low-k dielectrics are useful as intermetal dielectrics (IMDs) and/or as interlayer dielectrics (ILDs).
However, the low-k dielectrics may present problems during processing. It is desirable to have improved manufacturing methods for forming reliable low-k dielectrics.