Passivation of copper in dual damascene metalization

摘要

The present invention pertains to systems and methods for passivating the copper seed layer deposited in Damascene integrated circuit manufacturing. More specifically, the invention pertains to systems and methods for depositing the copper seed layer by physical vapor deposition, while passivating the copper during or immediately after the deposition in order to prevent excessive oxidation of the copper. The invention is applicable to dual Damascene processing.