Base oxide scaling limit of thermally-enhanced remote plasma nitridation (TE-RPN) process for ultra-thin gate dielectric formation

Author

Yu, M.C. ; Huang, H.T. ; Chen, C.H. ; Wang, M.F. ; Hou, T.H. ; Lin, Y.M. ; Jang, S.M. ; Diaz, C.H. ; Sun, Jack ; Fang, Y.K. ; Chen, S.C. ; Yu, C.H. ; Liang, M.S.

Author_Institution

Taiwan Semicond. Manuf. Co., Hsin-Chu, Taiwan

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

179

Lastpage

182

Abstract

We investigate the scaling limit of base oxides treated by thermally-enhanced remote plasma nitridation (TE-RPN) for ultra-thin gate dielectric formation. Under optimized RPN conditions, this work shows gate-dielectric equivalent thickness (EOT) scalability and no transconductance degradation are characteristic of processes with base oxide thickness down to 17 Å. Thinner base oxides result in reduced EOT scalability and transconductance degradation, resulting in ~14 Å manufacturable EOT limit for TE-RPN gate dielectrics

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; dielectric thin films; integrated circuit technology; nitridation; 14 A; 17 A; EOT scalability; base oxide scaling limit; gate-dielectric equivalent thickness scalability; manufacturable EOT limit; optimized nitridation conditions; thermally-enhanced remote plasma nitridation; transconductance degradation; ultra-thin gate dielectric formation; High K dielectric materials; Leakage current; MOS devices; Materials reliability; Nitrogen; Plasma applications; Scalability; Temperature; Thermal degradation; Transconductance;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Semiconductor Manufacturing Symposium, 2001 IEEE International

Conference_Location

San Jose, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6731-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISSM.2001.962943

Filename

962943