Novel selective sidewall airgap process [single damascene interconnects]

Abstract

In the present work, we demonstrate a novel selective process for airgap formation at the interconnect sidewalls for single damascene interconnects. The proposed single step scheme is simpler than the currently existing airgap approaches. This process has been shown to be scalable down to spacings of 60 nm and allows capacitance drops in the range of 6%-39% with only a marginal increase in leakage current.