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Background: The electronics industry has characteristics, such as the continuous occurrence of new hazards and risk factors due to rapid technological changes, the occurrence of safety and health blind spots due to the outsourcing of work, trade secrets, and a lack of information, so research is needed from a safety and health perspective. This study sought to determine the relationship between work-related health problems and the working conditions of electronics industry workers. Methods: The study subjects were 3354 workers in the electronics industry from the raw data of the 4th to 6th Korean Working Condition Survey (KWCS). The variables were divided into general, occupational, and working environment characteristics, and a logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between work-related health problems and working conditions. Results: Among the general and occupational characteristics, gender, education, night work, and working time appropriateness were analyzed as effect factors. In terms of working environment characteristics, physical work risk, musculoskeletal work risk, possibility of risk to work, subjective health impact, and working environment satisfaction were found to have effects on work-related health problems. Conclusions: The results of this study are meaningful in that they identified the effect factors of work-related health problems in the working conditions of workers in the electronics industry, where prior studies are lacking. Therefore, improvements, such as the management of night workers, appropriate working time, reduction in exposure to work risk factors, and improvement in working environment satisfaction, appear to be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenges have arisen in selecting suitable candidates for interconnects and metal contacts due to the exponential increase in metal resistivity at scaled pitches. Molybdenum (Mo) has emerged as a promising alternative to the traditional metals such as copper or tungsten owing to its low electrical resistivity and electron mean free path. In this study, we investigated the formation of a molybdenum film grown by thermal atomic layer deposition (ALD) using a MoO2Cl2 solid precursor and H2 and NH3 gases as the reducing agents. A molybdenum nitride film served as the seed layer on a SiO2 substrate before molybdenum film deposition. The analysis focused on the film's phase, morphology, chemical bonding states, and resistivity across various thicknesses. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the presence of polycrystalline BCC planes. Our analyses confirmed the successful growth of the molybdenum metal thin film, which, at a thickness of 10 nm, exhibited a record-low resistivity of approximately 13 μΩ cm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we conducted research on manufacturing molybdenum (Mo) thin films by a thermal atomic layer deposition method using solid MoO2Cl2 as a precursor. Mo thin films are widely used as gate electrodes and electrodes in metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors. Tungsten (W) has primarily been used as a conventional gate electrode, but it suffers from reduced resistivity due to the residual fluorine component generated from the deposition process. Thus, herein, we developed a Mo thin film with low resistivity that can substitute W. The MoO2Cl2 precursor used to deposit the Mo thin film exists in a solid state. For solid precursors, the vapor pressure does not remain constant compared to that of liquid precursors, thereby making it difficult to set process conditions. Furthermore, the use of solid precursors at temperatures 600 °C and above has many limitations. Herein, H2 was used as the reactive gas for the deposition of Mo thin films, and the deposition temperature was increased to 650 °C, which was the maximum processing temperature of the aluminum nitride heater. Additionally, deposition rate, resistivity change, and surface morphology characteristics were compared. While resistivity decreased to 12.9 μΩ∙cm with the increase of deposition temperature from 600 °C to 650 °C, surface roughness (Rq) was increased to 0.560 nm with step coverage of 97%. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the crystallization change in the Mo thin film with increasing process temperature, and a certain thickness of the seed layer was required for nucleation on the initial wafer of the Mo thin film. Thus, the molybdenum nitride thin film was deposited after the 4 nm deposition of Mo thin film. This study confirmed that crystallinity of Mo thin films must be increased to reduce their resistivity and that a seed layer for initial nucleation is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study concerns the development of a gap-fill process technology for isolating trench patterns. There are various gap-filling techniques in the case of trench patterns; nevertheless, a processing technology adopting the DED (deposition/etch/deposition) method was developed in this study. After the etch step, an Ar/O2 (1:2) plasma treatment technology reduced the residual amount of F in the films to 0.05%. By improving the etch uniformity, the deposition uniformity after the DED process on a 12-inch flat wafer was secured within <1%, and a high-quality SiO2 thin film with a dielectric constant of 3.97 and a breakdown field of 11.41 MV/cm was fabricated. The DED method can be used for gap-filling even in patterns with a high aspect ratio by changing process parameters, such as RF power and division of etch steps, according to the shape, depth, and CD size of the pattern. This study confirmed that a void-free gap-fill process can be developed in a trench pattern with a maximum aspect ratio of 40:1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]