Hanyang University announced on the 29th that Professor Ahn Ji-hoon of the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering developed a new material and deposition process that can be used as a next generation semiconductor wiring due to its very low resistance and its processes. The deposition process of thin films "molybdenum carbide" was developed through industry-university cooperation research with iChem co., Ltd. and it is expected to improve the performance of semiconductor device when applied to metal line material in the semiconductor industry.

Copper and tungsten, which are often used as existing semiconductor metal line, face a rapid decrease in their electrical conductivity as semiconductor devices become miniaturizated and line width decreases. Thus the development of new metal line materials is underway worldwide. The molybden or the molybdenum compound has attracted attention as a next-generation semiconductor metal line material because of its excellent low resistance characteristics and thermochemical stability, but it is difficult to mass-produce the molybdenum compound due to the absence of a precursor.

To solve such problems, iChems succeeded in developing a new molybdenum metal-organic precursor that can assure mass production. The newly developed precursor shows a better advantage that it is more volatile when compared to a previous one and it is also an advantage since it is really useful in mass-producing semiconductors as the precursor does not have halide-base elements such as fluorine or chlorine. 

By using the newly developed precursor, Professor Ahn's team developed an atomic layer deposition process that can be applied as next-generation metal line in semiconductor industry. The research team developed a thin film deposition process with a nanometer thickness and non-resistant molybdenum carbide, which maintained ultralow resistivity value(10-20 μΩ·cm). 

Researcher Ha Min-ji of the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at Hanyang University (Doctorate degree course) led this research and it is meaningful in that they implemented molybdenum carbide thin film deposition that maintains very low resistivity even with a very thin thickness of 5nm or less, and it suggested an application possibility to a next-generation semiconductor metal line by evaluating thermal and chemical stability.

Professor Ahn Ji-hoon, who was the advisor of this research, said, "This research result has a meaning that it brought out a world-class research result through domestic small and middle-sized material enterprises and university's thorough cooperative research. There should be much more effort and attention for an outstanding research result made by small and middle-sized enterprise and a university to be applied to semiconductor mass production."

CEO Kim Hyeon-chang of iChems, who took part in precursor development, said, "For the past 20 years, there was no successful case of mass production application of semiconductor metal line material precursor development using atomic layer deposition worldwide due to the technological difficulty. The molybdenum precursor co-developed this time is to be praised high since it has a high possibility of mass-production application."

In the meantime, the research result is listed in the March edition of 「Chemistry of Materials」(IF=9.811), a world-renown journal of the materials chemistry field (Title: Ultra-low Resistivity Molybdenum Carbide Thin Films Deposited by Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition Using a Cyclopentadienyl-based Precursor) and also chosen as a cover article in recognition of its excellence.