METHOD FOR FABRICATING BACK END OF THE LINE STRUCTURES WITH LINER AND SEED MATERIALS

摘要

A sputter-etching method employed to achieve a thinned down noble metal liner layer deposited on the surface or field of an intermediate back end of the line (BEOL) interconnect structure. The noble metal liner layer is substantially thinned down to a point where the effect of the noble metal has no significant effect in the chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process. The noble metal liner layer may be completely removed by sputter etching to facilitate effective planarization by chemical-mechanical polishing to take place.