Novel Dielectric-Constant Evaluation Method for Low-$k$ Multilevel Metallization Structures in ULSI

Precise evaluation of the dielectric constants of low- $k$ interlayer dielectrics in ULSI is essential in order to analyze the effects of their fabrication process and their structure on their $k$ -values. However, this is difficult to achieve in complicated multilayer structures with various kinds of stacked films having different physical properties. To address this problem, we have developed a novel evaluation method that makes it possible to precisely analyze the effects of structure and fabrication process on the $k$ -values of dielectrics.