Subsections

• 2.2.1 Stress Liners
• 2.2.2 STI Stress
• 2.2.3 Heteroepitaxial Strain

2.2 Process-Induced Strain

To overcome these problems associated with substrate strain, a new approach based on uniaxial strain created through processing steps was suggested. This approach provided the semiconductor industry the knob to improve the performances of the nMOS and pMOS devices independently.

In conventional CMOS process flows, stress patterns can arise from various factors such as different processing temperatures, difference in thermal expansion coefficient, different growth conditions and mechanisms, and dopant implantations. The distribution of these process-induced stresses can be highly non-uniform and can result in larger values of strain in certain parts of the device than in others. Thus it is possible to engineer an almost uniaxial stress into the Si channel beneficial for mobility enhancement. Another advantage of uniaxial stress over biaxial stress is that it can be induced by a process step which is much easier to incorporate into the CMOS fabrication with negligible additional costs. However, these process-induced stresses are strongly dependent on the device layout and therefore care should be taken to ensure that the uniaxial stress components along different directions add complementarily and are not canceling each other out.

2.2.1 Stress Liners

In this technique, strain is introduced into the MOSFET channel through the use of capping layers [Ito00]. The capping layers usually of Si nitride (Si$_3$N$_4$) can be grown using chemical vapor deposition techniques after the conventional salicide formation, and can produce compressive or tensile stress depending on the deposition conditions. It has been demonstrated how a highly tensile stressed Si$_3$N$_4$ layer improves the nMOS performance [Shimizu01]. However, since stress has different impact on electrons and holes, both compressive and tensile stress are required for enhancing the performance of CMOS transistors: tensile for nMOS and compressive for pMOS.

CMOS architectures in which both compressive and tensile stress can be used in conjunction have been suggested. In this dual stress liner technology (DSL), a tensile Si$_3$N$_4$ layer is deposited over the entire wafer, followed by patterning and etching the film off the pMOS transistors. Afterwards, a compressive film is deposited and is etched off the nMOS transistors. Thus the performance of the nMOS and pMOS devices can be improved simultaneously. Improvements in both the linear as well as the saturation drain currents have been reported [Yang04,Pidin04].

Si$_3$N$_4$ capping layers could alternatively be used for straining the channel through a stress memorization technique (SMT) [Chen04]. Drain current improvements greater than 15% have been reported using SMT for nMOS devices [Chan05]. In this approach, the polysilicon-gate of the nMOS transistor is amorphized by implantation using heavy atoms such as Ge or As, followed by the tensile nitride layer deposition. The poly-gate is next allowed to recrystallize during source-drain annealing after which the capping layer is removed. It is believed that the poly-Si gate memorizes the stress during the recrystallization process which is retained even after the removal of the capping layer.

2.2.2 STI Stress

The LOCOS (local oxidation of Si) technology used for isolation was replaced by shallow trench isolation (STI) for deep submicron technologies. However, with the further scaling of CMOS devices, the distance between STI and channel decreases which induces stress into the channel. Since the stress resulting from STI is compressive, it is found to be detrimental for nMOS devices [Scott99,Ootsuka00]. The situation can however be improved by recessing the STI [STI07] which relieves the compressive stress in the channel. Moreover, it has been shown that with optimized fabrication steps, the mobility of the pMOS devices can be enhanced using STI stress [Sanuki03].

2.2.3 Heteroepitaxial Strain

The lattice mismatch between Si and SiGe could also be used for producing uniaxial compressive stress in the channel. This can be accomplished by first etching a recess into Si, followed by epitaxially growing SiGe into the source and drain regions of the pMOS devices. The lattice mismatch between the SiGe source and drain regions and the Si channel introduces a compressive stress into the channel. This results in an improved hole mobility with the mobility enhancement factor dependent on the amount of strain coming from the Ge content in the SiGe. For 17% Ge content, that amounts to approximately 1% strain, mobility enhancements greater than 50% have been reported [Thompson04]. Similar mobility enhancements can be obtained for electrons by introducing tensile stress into the nMOS channel by employing selective SiC heteroepitaxy for the source and drain regions [Ang05]. The different mechanisms of generating process-induced stress are illustrated in Fig. 2.4.

Figure 2.4: Various techniques of introducing process-induced uniaxial stress into the channel. The techniques include stress liners, stress from STI and heteroepitaxial stress.