A 90nm high volume manufacturing logic technology featuring novel 45nm gate length strained silicon CMOS transistors

This paper describes the details of a novel strained transistor architecture which is incorporated into a 90nm logic technology on 300mm wafers. The unique strained PMOS transistor structure features an epitaxially grown strained SiGe film embedded in the source drain regions. Dramatic performance enhancement relative to unstrained devices are reported. These transistors have gate length of 45nm and 50nm for NMOS and PMOS respectively, 1.2nm physical gate oxide and Ni salicide. World record PMOS drive currents of 700/spl mu/A//spl mu/m (high V/sub T/) and 800/spl mu/A//spl mu/m (low V/sub T/) at 1.2V are demonstrated. NMOS devices exercise a highly tensile silicon nitride capping layer to induce tensile strain in the NMOS channel region. High NMOS drive currents of 1.26mA//spl mu/m (high VT) and 1.45mA//spl mu/m (low VT) at 1.2V are reported. The technology is mature and is being ramped into high volume manufacturing to fabricate next generation Pentium/spl reg/ and Intel/spl reg/ Centrino/spl trade/ processor families.