Metal CVD Products

Novellus is the leader in tungsten chemical vapor deposition technology for plug fill and low-stress composite interconnects. For metal CVD applications we combine our productive multistation sequential deposition architecture with process innovations such as high-pressure nucleation, resistive heating, vacuum wafer clamping and full-coverage deposition, using patented wafer backside exclusion technology.

Novellus' metal CVD product line includes:


ALTUS® Tungsten with PNL™

ALTUS tungsten deposition systems deliver leading productivity and technology for contact and local interconnect applications. Pulsed Nucleation Layer (PNL™) integrates a high throughput, atomic layer deposition (ALD) nucleation layer with chemical vapor deposition (CVD bulk deposition). Our Multi-Station Sequential Deposition (MSSD) architecture enables the nucleation layer and CVD fill to be performed within the same ALTUS chamber. During the PNL process, precisely controlled, alternating doses of reactant gases are introduced into the chamber, producing highly conformal tungsten films with improved film properties. PNL reduces nucleation layer thickness to around 50Å and extends ALTUS capability to 45nm and beyond. Furthermore, recent PNL processes can now alter CVD bulk fill grain growth and lower the overall resistivity of thin tungsten films by 20-30%. The integrated PNL and CVD approach produces benchmark productivity (>100 wph on Concept Three Dual ALTUS) and superior production availability (>90% in high volume production) resulting in the lowest Cost of Ownership tungsten deposition solution in the industry.

300mm ALTUS Process Module

ALTUS® DirectFill™

Winner of a MICRO magazine "Greatest Hits of 2005" award, DirectFill is a single-system solution for tungsten conductor deposition with three process modules: Preclean, PNL WN and PNL/CVD W.  DirectFill allows the deposition of tungsten without Ti/TiN for contacts, local interconnect and other applications.  By eliminating the requirement for Ti/TiN the capital cost and CoO for these applications is significantly reduced.  Conformality and plug fill is exceptional, providing tungsten solutions at 32 nm and lower. Deposition temperatures are all below 400°C; compatible with NiSix.

300 mm ALTUS DirectFill System

ALTUS® Max™ The ALTUS Max tungsten deposition system delivers advanced contact and via fill technology in a high-productivity platform. ALTUS Max is the first ALD tungsten system to break the 120 wph throughput barrier, setting a new benchmark in productivity, while providing world-class reliability and single-digit 65 nm defect performance.

ALTUS Max