High temperature resilience of deposited films in harsh environment semiconductor devices : Topics/categories: Non-silicon

Integrated Circuits (ICs) fabricated in Silicon Carbide (SiC) has been the most suitable candidate for high-temperature (> 500 °C) applications. Such high temperature resiliency is strongly dependent on the selection and combination of interconnect metal with the dielectric films for passivation. The protection of interconnect metal from oxidation using suitable passivation films, and the adhesion between the bond pad and the dielectric layers is functionally critical in high temperature environment. This paper reports promising results towards selecting improved passivation dielectric films, as well as metallization for bond pad interfaces. Early results are presented with ring oscillator (ROs) test circuits at prolonged 500 °C operation.