High Performance Sub-40 nm Bulk CMOS with Dopant Confinement Layer (DCL) technique as a Strain Booster

A new powerful strain booster named as dopant confinement layer (DCL) technique is proposed for the first time. DCL technique is a novel stress memorization technique (SMT). Our proposed method doesn´t require any additional capping layers used in SMT. DCL fabricated directly on the gate dielectric film effectively improved drive currents without degrading short channel immunity because DCL technique dose not affect halo, extension and source/drain (S/D) profiles. The higher dopant concentration in DCL resulted in both the better electron mobility and the thinner equivalent oxide thickness of inversion layer capacitance (T_eff). Consequently, the higher drive currents of 1204 muA/mum and 786 muA/mum were obtained at V_dd=1.0 V for nMOSFET and pMOSFET, respectively.