45nm High-k/Metal-Gate CMOS Technology for GPU/NPU Applications with Highest PFET Performance

Highest planar HK/MG PFET performance (I_ON = 790 muA at I_off = 100 nA, Vdd= 1 V and Lg= 33 nm) has been demonstrated with a gate-first dual-metal CMOS integrated process and proven by functional SRAM cell. Integrating modern stressors without IL re-growth and achieving band edge work function without increasing T_INV are two major challenges for gate-first HK/MG processes. In this work, band-edge effective work function has been achieved without increasing T_INV. Furthermore, with successful integration of stress techniques like SiGe-S/D, SMT and CESL, not only performance was improved by 30% but also no reliability degradation was observed. Finally, no degradation from decreasing poly-pitch also suggests its good scalability to next generations.