Reliability Characteristics of a High Density Metal- Insulator-Metal Capacitor on Intel’s 10+ Process

We present a high density MIM decoupling capacitor that enables improved microprocessor performance by providing robust on-chip power supply droop reduction. The MIM dielectric is fabricated using ALD-deposited HfO 2 -Al 2 O 3 and HfO 2 -ZrO 2 high-k dielectrics with PVD TiN electrodes. We achieve single MIM-cap densities of 37 fF/μm2 and 52 fF/μm2 that meet reliability requirement for both 1.98 V and 1.26 V use conditions. The reliability of the HfO 2 -ZrO 2 capacitor shows minimal voltage polarity dependence, which enables the use of multi-plate MIM-caps to increase capacitance density. We achieved a capacitance density of 141 fF/μm2 with a four-plate configuration, representing a 3.5× improvement over the reported capacitance density on Intel’s 14 nm process. In addition, the stack meets environmental stress tests. This MIM- cap improves the on-chip power delivery network, leading to an increase in maximum frequency of microprocessors and is now shipping in volume.