HALBLEITER.ORG Knowledge. Processes. Perspectives.

DATA & DEVELOPMENT

Technology

Technology nodes from 10 µm to 2 nm

NODE SCALE

10 µm 2 nm

Selected: 130 nm
10 µm 3 µm 1,5 µm 1 µm 800 nm 600 nm 350 nm 250 nm 180 nm 130 nm 90 nm 65 nm 45 nm 32 nm 22 nm 16 nm 11 nm 7 nm 5 nm 3 nm 2 nm

Technology node · 130 nm

130 nm (0.13 µm)

The 130 nm process refers to the manufacturing technology that came into use at leading semiconductor manufacturers from around 2001 onward.

At this node, copper interconnects became increasingly established in place of aluminum. Copper has a lower electrical resistance than aluminum and therefore reduces the RC delay of the increasingly narrow and long interconnects. Since copper cannot be patterned using the conventional dry-etching processes used for aluminum, the damascene process is used: trenches and vias are first etched into the dielectric, then filled with copper, and the excess copper is subsequently removed by chemical-mechanical polishing.

At the same time, low-k dielectrics begin to replace conventional silicon dioxide between the metal interconnects. Their lower dielectric constant reduces the capacitance between neighboring lines and therefore further reduces signal delay and power consumption.

Lithography continues to use 248 nm krypton-fluoride exposure for many layers, while 193 nm argon-fluoride lithography becomes increasingly important for the most critical structures.

Processors manufactured in 130 nm (selection):
  • Intel Pentium III (Tualatin, 2001)
  • Intel Pentium 4 (Northwood, 2002)
  • AMD Athlon XP (Thoroughbred, 2002)