To overcome the limitation of the sputtered Cu seed layer in electroplating of Cu interconnects imposed by the shadow effect, a new method for depositing a Cu seed layer on a 41 nm trench pattern based on combination of electroless plating (ELP) and electron-beam (E-Beam) evaporation was developed. A Cu seed layer formed by ELP alone was too thin to be used for electroplating due to its high resistivity. To solve this problem, an additional Cu layer was deposited on top of the trench by E-Beam evaporator to enhance the electrical conductivity of the Cu seed layer. The electrical resistivity of the resulting Cu layer was reduced to 4.8 mV cm, which was sufficient for the conductive seed layer for electroplating the 41 nm trench pattern. The gap-filling capability also improved and there were no voids or seams in the 41 nm trench pattern. The proposed method can be an effective solution for fabrication of a conductive seed layer to fill a 41 nm trench pattern by electroplating. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.