Patent ID: 7700474

Claim:
A method of operating an Ionized Physical Vapor Deposition (IPVD) system to deposit a barrier layer, the method comprising: positioning a patterned substrate on a wafer table within a processing chamber, the processing chamber including a tantalum target opposite the wafer table; flowing a process gas comprising an inert gas and a nitrogen containing gas into the processing chamber; inductively coupling an energy from an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source to the inert gas within the processing chamber to form a high density plasma; sputtering tantalum from the tantalum target and into the high density plasma; adjusting a chamber pressure within the processing chamber and a bias power applied to the wafer table to achieve at least 70% ionization of the tantalum within the high density plasma; depositing an ultra-thin TaN barrier layer having a high nitrogen concentration by a deposition process onto the patterned substrate, wherein the ultra-thin TaN barrier layer has a resistivity of at least 1000 micro-Ohm-cm, resists copper diffusion, and provides a high etch resistant etch-stop layer for subsequent processes; and removing the patterned substrate from the processing chamber.