ABSTRACT
The quality of the electrical contacts within an integrated circuit is critical to the performance of the chip. In view of both its technological importance and the many ways possible to form contacts, no other single area of circuit technology appears so extensively investigated, with the possible exception of gate oxides. As shown in Figure 3.1, there was the problem of the interaction between Al and Si in the earliest practical silicon contacts in which Al, and later AlSi, was the interconnection metallization.
