Importance of heat-up ramp rate for palladium-silicide fully-silicided-gate structure formation

Silicidation process for fully-silicided (FUSI) Pd₂Si gate formation has been investigated. Two types of heating equipment was used for siliciding palladium deposited on a poly-Si/SiO₂/Si MOS structure. One is lamp heating in a sputtering chamber and another is hot-plate heating. The former provide slower heat-up ramp because of relatively large thermal capacity. In this case, metal-rich phase was formed in the first stage of silicidation and it changed to Pd₂ Si phase by additional heating after completion of silicidation reaction. FUSI utilizes impurity pre-doping to poly-Si to modulate workfunction. Pre-doping to poly-Si sometimes resulted in needle structure formation on a top of silicided film and voids at the interface between silicide and SiO₂. These defects were reduced by silicidation with hot plate heating. In addition, Pd₂ Si phase was obtained at the early stage of silicidation. Palladium and silicon reacts even at temperatures lower than 250degC. Therefore, in the case of the lamp heating, silicidation during heating is not negligible. These results are explainable considering change of major diffusion species during silicidation