Atomic Layer Deposition - ALD in Microelectronics

ALD in Microelectronics

In microelectronics, ALD is studied as a potential technique to deposit high-k (high permittivity) gate oxides, high-k memory capacitor dielectrics, ferroelectrics, and metals and nitrides for electrodes and interconnects. In high-k gate oxides, where the control of ultra thin films is essential, ALD is only likely to come in to wider use at the 45 nm technology. In metallizations, conformal films are required; currently it is expected that ALD will be used in mainstream production at the 65 nm node. In dynamic random access memories (DRAMs), the conformality requirements are even higher and ALD is the only method that can be used when feature sizes become smaller than 100 nm.