The current crop of fabrication equipment aimed at copper has not
licked all the problems presented by the new process, it appears. "I
think that all of the equipment for copper at this point in time is still
development [grade], as opposed to engineering or manufacturing
pieces of equipment," Wollesen said. "CVD [chemical-vapor
deposition] copper has got its problems and the electrochemical
plating equipment has its problems. They both work, but I don't
think either one of them works well enough for very fine-pitch
stuff," he added.
The semiconductor equipment industry is racing to embrace copper.
For example, this week, two equipment makers, Lam Research
and Novellus Systems, linked up in a research agreement to
develop fabrication solutions for copper interconnects.
Wollesen, who is a member of the steering committee for
Sematech's National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors,
said copper interconnects did not even appear on the road map until
1994. AMD began studying the technology in 1995.
Looking ahead to the time when copper interconnects will be
practical, Wollesen said, "We don't see it [copper] happening until
the 0.18-micron generation, which is what IBM has announced.
We don't believe it will be any sooner than that."
As to whether AMD itself will use copper when it moves to
0.18-micron process technology, Wollesen said, "We're looking at
it. We haven't made the decision at this point." |
