Abstract – A data analysis procedure has been developed to estimate the contact area in an elasto-plastic indentation of a thin film bonded to a substrate. The procedure can be used to derive the elastic modulus and hardness of the film from the indentation load, displacement, and contact stiffness data at indentation depths that are a significant fraction of the film thickness. The analysis is based on Yu’s elastic solution for the contact of a rigid conical punch on a layered half-space and uses an approach similar to the Oliver-Pharr method for bulk materials. The methodology is demonstrated for both compliant films on stiff substrates and the reverse combination and shows improved accuracy over previous methods. 

Integrating porous low-permittivity dielectrics into Cu metallization is one of the strategies to reduce power consumption, signal propagation delays, and crosstalk between interconnects for the next generation of integrated circuits. However, the porosity and pore structure of these low-k dielectric materials also strongly affects other important material properties besides their dielectric constant.