Plastic
mix helps shrink circuits
By
Ted Smalley Bowen,
Technology Research NewsAs manufacturers make ever smaller computer chips in a continuing quest to speed the signals pulsing through integrated circuits, components like the capacitors that store electric charge will require a certain amount of finessing in order to function in smaller incarnations.
One challenge in reducing the size of capacitors on chips is to lose as little storage capacity as possible, since capacitance -- the ability to retain a charge of electric current for a certain amount of time -- depends partly on surface area.
Chip makers have addressed this in a number of ways: etching deep trenches in the silicon, stacking capacitors vertically, roughening the silicon surface, and using highly insulating materials between the capacitor electrodes.
A group of researchers at the University of Massachusetts and IBM have harnessed the self-assembly abilities of commonly-used polymers to create tiny masks that allow them to etch smaller silicon capacitors than current production methods permit.
The promise of the method is that it can be implemented with existing chip-making equipment, allowing for a leap in miniaturization without requiring a retooling of the production line, said Chuck T. Black, a researcher at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center. “Our process is compatible with all the tools used for production of microelectronic circuits," he said.
To form the masks, the researchers used thin films of diblock copolymers, which are carbon-based chains of molecules made from chains of polystyrene and polymethylmethacrylate molecules. Polystyrene is used to make many hard plastics and styrofoam. Polymethylmethacrylate is used to make plexiglass.
The researchers coaxed the copolymers to self-assemble into a closely-spaced hexagonal array of polymethylmethacrylate cylinders within a polystyrene matrix by spincasting thin films of the diblock copolymer onto a silicon wafer, then heating the wafer to 160 °C. Spincasting is the process of spreading a thin, even coat of a liquid onto a surface by spinning the surface.
The cylinders were roughly 12 nanometers in diameter and spaced about thirteen nanometers apart, said Black. A nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter. The diameter of the cylinders and the spacing between them could be varied by altering the molecular weight of the polymer, he said.
The researchers then exposed the cylinders to ultraviolet light, which broke down the polymethylmethacrylate and caused the polystyrene to form cross-links, locking the structure together. They used acetic acid to remove the polymethylmethacrylate, producing a porous template of polystyrene useful in chip-making lithography.
The result was a template about 30 nanometers thick, with pits, or holes measuring 30 nanometers across, said Black.
The template holes are about the size of a stack of six red blood cells. The mask is close to an order of magnitude smaller than those produced using today's commercial photolithography method, which can produce features as small as about 200 nanometers, said Black. It's also considerably smaller than the next generation of that method, which promises to produce features as small as 150 nanometers, he said.
Polymethylmethacrylate can be processed using the same techniques as conventional polymers used in chip making, and it's natural self-organizing properties give it a size advantage over today's methods, said Black. “Because of the self-organizing properties of this polymer resist, we can pattern features at resolutions higher than any photolithographic technique," without using complicated tools.
The diblock copolymer masking method allowed the researchers to make a capacitor with a large surface area and at the same time squeeze it onto a small amount of chip surface simply because the template provided them with such small and regular spaces.
The researchers used the masks and a beam of ions, or charged atoms, to etch into the surface of a silicon wafer a three-dimensional capacitor electrode that had 30 percent more capacitance than common planar, or two-dimensional capacitors.
To make a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) device like those used in computer chips, they added an aluminum gate electrode to the capacitor.
Refinements are in order before the method is ready for commercial production, said Thomas P. Russell, professor of polymer science and engineering and director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. These include figuring out a way to address, or connect components made this way, he said.
The work is a novel approach to increasing capacitance per unit area, said Vivek Subramanian, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. “This is very important for the DRAM [memory chip] industry in particular. Specifically, the authors achieve pits that are 30 nanometers across, which is very impressive."
The work is applicable to the creation of other micro-devices, Subramanian said. “The technique could be used to form pits for molecular landing pads for biochips. I think this technique will be very useful in these alternative fields,” he said.
To use the methods in making silicon-based integrated circuits, however, the researchers will need to more finely control the size and spacing of the template holes, he said.
The technique would also be more useful if it could be used in a stacked cell, where capacitors are built not on the silicon wafer substrate itself, but on overlaying polysilicon. “Since the technology will likely be used in a stacked cell... the technique must be applied to polysilicon, which will require some development work,” he said. But “neither of these problems should be show stoppers, so I think this is a really important and useful technique,” he added.
Black’s research colleagues at IBM were Kathryn W. Guarini, and Keith R. Milkove. Russell’s colleagues at UMass were Shenda M. Baker and Mark T. Tuominen.
The researchers published their research in the July 16, 2001 issue of the Applied Physics Letters. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and IBM.
Timeline: Unknown
Funding: Corporate, Government
TRN Categories: Semiconductors; Nanotechnology
Story Type: News
Related Elements: Technical paper, “Integration of Self-Assembled Diblock Copolymers for Semiconductor Capacitor Fabrication,” Applied Physics Letters, July 16, 2001. >
Advertisements:
October 3, 2001
Page One
Neurons battle to a draw
Quantum crypto gear shrinks
Toy shows bare bones of walking
Tiny jaws snatch cells
Plastic mix helps shrink circuits
News:
Research News Roundup
Research Watch blog
Features:
View from the High Ground Q&A
How It Works
RSS Feeds:
News
| Blog
| Books 
Ad links:
Buy an ad link
| Advertisements:
|
 |
Ad links: Clear History
Buy an ad link
|
TRN
Newswire and Headline Feeds for Web sites
|
© Copyright Technology Research News, LLC 2000-2006. All rights reserved.
