Measurements and modeling of residual stress in sputtered TiN and ZrN: Dependence on growth rate and pressure

In situ wafer curvature measurements have been conducted on sputter-deposited nitride films (TiN, ZrN) to investigate the effect of growth rate and pressure on stress. For each growth rate, the stress becomes more compressive at lower pressure. At high pressure the stress shows a weak dependence on growth rate, while at low pressure, it becomes more compressive at higher growth rates. The results are interpreted in terms of a kinetic model that includes the effects of growth kinetics and energetic particle bombardment. The overall agreement suggests that the model can reproduce the dependence on processing conditions in multiple nitride systems.