Avalanche electron injection in 4-nmSi3N4/8-nm SiO2 dielectric structure:turn-around phenomenon and Si-SiO2 interface degradation

Charge trapping and interface-state generation in very thin nitride/oxide (4-nm Si₃N₄+8-nm SiO₂) composite gate insulators are studied as a function of gate electrode work function and bottom oxide thickness. The behavior of the trapped positive charge under bias-temperature stress after avalanche electron injection (AEI) is investigated. Evidence is presented that secondary hole injection from the anode (gate/Si₃N₄ interface) and subsequent trapping near the SiO₂-Si interface result in a turnaround of the flatband voltage shift during AEI from the substrate. Just like the thermal oxides on Si, slow-state generation near the SiO₂-Si interface and boron acceptor passivation in the surface-space charge layer of the Si substrate are also observed after AEI in these nitride/oxide capacitors, and they are found to be strongly related to the secondary hole injection and trapping. Finally, interface-state generation can take place with little secondary anode hole injection and is enhanced by the occurrence of hole trapping     

High performance poly-crystalline silicon thin film transistorsfabricated using remote plasma chemical vapor deposition of SiO2

A remote plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) of SiO₂ was investigated for forming an interface of SiO₂/Si at a low temperature below 300°C. A good SiO₂/Si interface was formed on Si substrates through decomposition and reaction of SiH₄ gas with oxygen radical by confining plasma using mesh plates. The density of interface traps (D_it) was as low as 3.4×10¹⁰ cm^-2eV^-1. N- and p-channel Al-gate poly-Si TFTs were fabricated at 270°C with SiO₂ films as a gate oxide formed by RPCVD and laser crystallized poly-crystalline films formed by a pulsed XeCl excimer laser. They showed good characteristics of a low threshold voltage of 1.5 V (n-channel) and -1.5 V (p-channel), and a high carrier mobility of 400 cm²/Vs     

A Comparative Study of HfTaON/SiO2 and HfON/SiO2 Gate Stacks With TaN Metal Gate for Advanced CMOS Applications

The electrical characteristics of a novel HfTaON/SiO₂ gate stack, which consists of a HfTaON film with a dielectric constant of 23 and a 10-Aring SiO₂ interfacial layer, have been investigated for advanced CMOS applications. The HfTaON/SiO₂ gate stack provided much lower gate leakage current against SiO₂ , good interface properties, excellent transistor characteristics, and superior carrier mobility. Compared to HfON/SiO₂, improved thermal stability was also observed in the HfTaON/SiO₂ gate stack. Moreover, charge-trapping-induced threshold voltage V _th instability was examined for the HfTaON/SiO₂ and HfON/SiO₂ gate stacks. The HfTaON/SiO₂ gate stack exhibited significant suppression of the V_th instability compared to the HfON/SiO₂, in particular, for nMOSFETs. The excellent performances observed in the HfTaON/SiO₂ gate stack indicate that it has the potential to replace conventional SiO₂ or SiON as gate dielectric for advanced CMOS applications     

SiC MOS interface characteristics

It is well known that SiC can be thermally oxidized to form SiO ₂ layers. And Si MOSFET IC's using thermally grown SiO₂ gate dielectrics are the predominant IC technology in the world today. However the SiC/SiO₂ interface has not been well characterized as was the case for Si MOS in the early 1960's. This paper presents data which for the first time characterizes the SiC/SiO₂ interface and explains one of the previously unexplained abnormalities observed in the characteristics of SiC MOSFET's     

不同退火氛围对TiN/HfO2/SiO2/Si结构电荷分布的影响

热退火技术是集成电路制造过程中用来改善材料性能的重要手段。系统分析了两种不同的退火条件(氨气氛围和氧气氛围)对TiN/HfO₂/SiO₂/Si结构中电荷分布的影响,给出了不同退火条件下SiO₂/Si和HfO₂/SiO₂界面的界面电荷密度、HfO₂的体电荷密度以及HfO₂/SiO₂界面的界面偶极子的数值。研究结果表明,在氨气和氧气氛围中退火会使HfO₂/SiO₂界面的界面电荷密度减小、界面偶极子增加,而SiO₂/Si界面的界面电荷密度几乎不受退火影响。最后研究了不同退火氛围对电容平带电压的影响,发现两种不同的退火条件都会导致TiN/HfO₂/SiO₂/Si电容结构平带电压的正向漂移,基于退火对其电荷分布的影响研究,此正向漂移主要来源于退火导致的HfO₂/SiO₂界面的界面偶极子的增加。     

High Mobility Strained Ge pMOSFETs With High-κ/Metal Gate

Compressively strained Ge long channel ring-type pMOSFETs with high-kappa Si/SiO₂/HfO₂/TiN gate stacks are fabricated on Si_0.2Ge_0.8 virtual substrates. Effective oxide thickness is approximately 1.4 nm with low gate leakage current. A peak hole mobility of 640 cm²/ Vldrs and up to a four times enhancement over the Si/SiO₂ universal curve are observed. Parasitic conduction within the Si-cap layers degrades the mobility at large vertical fields, although up to a 2.5 times enhancement over universal remains at a field of 0.9 MV/cm.     

Synthesis of a new manufacturable high-quality graded gate oxidefor sub-0.2 μm technologies

Graded gate oxide process involves a two-step synthesis of growing an oxide at a temperature above the viscoelastic temperature (T_VE ) onto a pregrown low temperature thermally grown SiO₂ layer to form a composite graded SiO₂ structure. The cooling rate is carefully modulated near T_VE~925°C to enhance growth induced stress relaxation. The pregrown SiO₂ layer provides grading and is a sink for stress accommodation for the final high temperature SiO₂ forming the interface. Both grading and modulated cooling generate a strain-free and planar Si/SiO₂ interface. Such an interface delivers significant enhancement in all aspects of device reliability and performance. These oxides are of very high-quality, robust, and manufacturable with a process capability index, C_pk>1.5. Graded gate oxide is already in the primary path of our 0.16 μm and 0.12 μm technologies     

MOS transistors with stacked SiO2-Ta2O5-SiO2 gate dielectrics for giga-scale integration ofCMOS technologies

Advances in lithography and thinner SiO₂ gate oxides have enabled the scaling of MOS technologies to sub-0.25-μm feature size. High dielectric constant materials, such as Ta₂O₅ , have been suggested as a substitute for SiO₂ as the gate material beyond t_ox≈25 Å. However, the Si-Ta ₂O₅ material system suffers from unacceptable levels of bulk fixed charge, high density of interface trap states, and low silicon interface carrier mobility. In this paper we present a solution to these issues through a novel synthesis of a thermally grown SiO₂(10 Å)-Ta₂O₅ (MOCVD-50 Å)-SiO₂ (LPCVD-5 Å) stacked dielectric. Transistors fabricated using this stacked gate dielectric exhibit excellent subthreshold behaviour, saturation characteristics, and drive currents     

Hot-electron hardened Si-gate MOSFET utilizing F implantation

A technique is presented for incorporating fluorine (F) into the gate-oxide film, and the subsequent improvement of channel-hot-electron hardness of the resulting MOSFET is reported. This technique uses low-energy F implantation onto the surface of the polysilicon gate-electrode, followed by annealing at 950° C to diffuse F into the gate SiO₂ toward the SiO₂/Si interface. The improved hot-electron hardness is explained by a model involving a strain relaxation near the SiO₂/Si interface by fluorine incorporation that results from Si-F bond formation     

Suppression of the boron penetration induced dielectric degradationby using a stacked-amorphous-silicon film as the gate structure forpMOSFET

This work proposes a stacked-amorphous-silicon (SAS) film as the gate structure of the p⁺ poly-Si gate pMOSFET to suppress boron penetration into the thin gate oxide. Due to the stacked structure, a large amount of boron and fluorine piled up at the stacked-Si layer boundaries and at the poly-Si/SiO₂ interface during the annealing process, thus the penetration of boron and fluorine into the thin gate oxide is greatly reduced. Although the grain size of the SAS film is smaller than that of the as deposited polysilicon (ADP) film, the boron penetration can be suppressed even when the annealing temperature is higher than 950°C. In addition, the mobile ion contamination can be significantly reduced by using this SAS gate structure. This results in the SAS gate capacitor having a smaller flat-band voltage shift, a less charge trapping and interface state generation rate, and a larger charge-to-breakdown than the ADP gate capacitor. Also the Si/SiO₂ interface of the p⁺ SAS gate capacitor is much smoother than that of the p⁺ SAS gate capacitor     

In Situ Comparison of Si/High- $kappa$ and $hbox{Si}/ hbox{SiO}_{2}$ Channel Properties in SOI MOSFETs

Detailed measurements of front- and back-channel characteristics in advanced SOI MOSFETs (ultrathin Si film, high-kappa, metal gate, and selective epitaxy of source/drain) are used to reveal and compare the transport properties at the corresponding Si/high- kappa (HfO₂ or HfSiON) and Si/SiO₂ interfaces. Low-temperature operation magnifies the difference between these two interfaces in terms of carrier mobility, threshold voltage, and subthreshold swing. As compared with Si/SiO₂, the low-field mobility is lower at the Si/high-kappa interface and increases less rapidly at low temperature, reflecting additional scattering mechanisms governed by high-kappa and neutral defects.     

Stack gate PZT/Al2O3 one transistorferroelectric memory

We have developed a single transistor ferroelectric memory using stack gate PZT/Al₂O₃ structure. For the same ~40 Å dielectric thickness, the PZT/Al₂O₃/Si gate dielectric has much better C-V characteristics and larger threshold voltage shift than those of PZT/SiO₂/Si. Besides, the ferroelectric MOSFET also shows a large output current difference between programmed on state and erased off state. The <100 us erase time is much faster than that of flash memory where the switching time is limited by erase time     

Suppression of boron penetration in p+ polysilicon gateP-MOSFETs using low-temperature gate-oxide N2O anneal

It has been reported that high-temperature (~1100°C) N₂ O-annealed oxide can block boron penetration from poly-Si gates to the silicon substrate. However, this high-temperature step may be inappropriate for the low thermal budgets required of deep-submicron ULSI MOSFETs. Low-temperature (900~950°C) N₂O-annealed gate oxide is also a good barrier to boron penetration. For the first time, the change in channel doping profile due to compensation of arsenic and boron ionized impurities was resolved using MOS C-V measurement techniques. It was found that the higher the nitrogen concentration incorporated at Si/SiO₂ interface, the more effective is the suppression of boron penetration. The experimental results also suggest that, for 60~110 Å gate oxides, a certain amount of nitrogen (~2.2%) incorporated near the Si/SiO₂ interface is essential to effectively prevent boron diffusing into the underlying silicon substrate     

Bi1.5Zn1.0 Nb1.5O7栅绝缘层的SiO2修饰对ZnO-TFTs性能的影响

具有高介电常数的栅绝缘层材料存在某种极化及耦合作用,使得ZnO-TFTs具有高的界面费米能级钉扎效应、大的电容耦合效应和低的载流子迁移率.为了解决这些问题,本文提出了一种使用SiO₂修饰的Bi_1.5Zn_1.0Nb_1.5O₇作为栅绝缘层的ZnO-TFTs结构,分析了SiO₂修饰对栅绝缘层和ZnO-TFTs性能的影响.结果表明,使用SiO₂修饰后,栅绝缘层和ZnO-TFTs的性能得到显著提高,使得ZnO-TFTs在下一代显示领域中具有非常广泛的应用前景.栅绝缘层的漏电流密度从4.5×10^-5A/cm²降低到7.7×10^-7A/cm²,粗糙度从4.52nm降低到3.74nm,ZnO-TFTs的亚阈值摆幅从10V/dec降低到2.81V/dec,界面态密度从8×10¹³cm^-2降低到9×10¹²cm^-2,迁移率从0.001cm²/（V·s）升高到0.159cm²/（V·s）.     

Yttrium- and Terbium-Based Interlayer on SiO2 and HfO2 Gate Dielectrics for Work Function Modulation of Nickel Fully Silicided Gate in nMOSFET

Novel yttrium- and terbium-based interlayers (Y_IL and Tb_IL, respectively) on SiO₂ and HfO₂ gate dielectrics were employed for NMOS work function Phi_m modulation of undoped nickel fully silicided (Ni-FUSI) gate. Bandedge Ni-FUSI gate Phi_m of ~4.11 and ~4.07 eV was obtained by insertion of ultrathin (~1 nm) Y_IL and Tb_IL, respectively, on the SiO₂ gate dielectric in a gate-first process (with 1000 degC anneal). NiSi Phi_m on SiO₂ could also be tuned between the Si midgap and the conduction bandedge E_C by varying the interlayer thickness. The achievement of NiSi Phi_m around 4.28 eV on the HfO₂ gate dielectric using interlayer insertion makes this an attractive Phi_m modulation technique for Ni-FUSI gates on SiO₂ and high-k dielectrics     

Metal–Oxide–High-$kappa$ Dielectric–Oxide–Semiconductor (MOHOS) Capacitors and Field-Effect Transistors for Memory Applications

Metal-oxide-high-kappa dielectric-oxide-silicon capacitors and transistors are fabricated using HfO₂ and Dy₂O₃ high-kappa dielectrics as the charge storage layer. The programming speed of Al/SiO₂/Dy₂O₃/ SiO₂/Si transistor is characterized by a DeltaV _th shift of 1.0 V with a programming voltage of 12 V applied for 10 ms. As for retention properties, the Al/SiO₂/Dy₂O₃/ SiO₂/Si transistors can keep a DeltaV _th window of 0.5 V for 2 times10⁸ s. The corresponding numbers for Al/ SiO₂/HfO₂/SiO₂/Si transistors are 100 ms and 2 times10⁴ s, respectively. The better performance of the Al/SiO₂/Dy₂O₃/ SiO₂/Si transistors is attributed to the larger conduction band offset at the Dy₂O₃/SiO₂ interface.     

Optimization of gate oxide N2O anneal for CMOSFET's atroom and cryogenic temperatures

This paper presents a study of the impact of gate-oxide N₂ O anneal on CMOSFET's characteristics, device reliability and inverter speed at 300 K and 85 K. Two oxide thicknesses (60 and 110 Å) and five N₂O anneal conditions (900~950°C, 5~40 min) plus nonnitrided process and channel lengths from 0.2 to 2 μm were studied to establish the correlation between the nitrogen concentration at Si/SiO₂ interface and the relative merits of the resultant devices. We concluded that one simple post-oxidation N₂O anneal step can increase CMOSFET's lifetime by 4~10 times, effectively suppress boron penetration from the P⁺ poly-Si gate of P-MOSFET's without sacrificing CMOS inverter speed. We also found that the benefits in terms of the improved interface hardness and charge trapping characteristic still exist at cryogenic temperature. All these improvements are found to be closely correlated to the nitrogen concentration incorporated at the Si/SiO₂ interface. The optimal N₂O anneal occurs somewhere at around 2% of nitrogen incorporation at Si/SiO₂ interface which can be realized by annealing 60~110 Å oxides at 950°C for 5 min or 900°C for 20 min     

Reduction of RIE-damage by N2O-anneal of thermal gateoxide

We have investigated RIE-induced damage in MOS devices with thermal oxide as well as N₂O-annealed oxide as gate dielectrics. A systematic improvement in robustness against RIE-induced damage is seen when N₂O flow rate and/or N₂O anneal temperature are increased. We have demonstrated a N₂O anneal process at 900°C, which provides a robust SiO₂/Si interface against plasma damage and hot carrier stress     

Application of liquid phase deposited silicon dioxide tometal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor and amorphous silicon thin-filmtransistor

Liquid phase deposited silicon dioxide (LPD-SiO₂) is applied to crystalline Si metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitor as the gate insulator. It is demonstrated that slow states exist at the Si/SiO₂ interface which cause hysteresis in the capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics. These slow states can be removed effectively by post-metallization-anneal. By means of C-V measurement and infrared absorption spectroscopy, it is concluded that the slow states are originated from the residual water or hydroxyl molecules in LPD-SiO₂. The LPD-SiO₂ is also applied to fabricate amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film transistor (TFT) based on a new self-aligned process. The performance of this device is comparable to those of thin film transistors employed other kinds of SiO₂, i.e., thermal, plasma, vacuum evaporation, etc., as the gate insulator. The bias-stress measurement shows that the threshold voltage shift is dominated by charge trapping in the gate insulator     

Oxide thickness effect on boron diffusion in thin oxide p+ Si gate technology

Based on a network defect model for the diffusion of B in SiO₂ we propose that B diffuses via a peroxy linkage defect whose concentration in the oxide changes under different processing conditions. We show that as the gate oxide is scaled below 80 Å in thickness, additional chemical processes act to increase B diffusivity and decrease its activation energy, both as a function of the distance from the Si/SiO₂ interface. For a 15 Å oxide, the B diffusivity at 900°C would increase by a factor of 24 relative to diffusion in a 100 Å oxide