1) Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to inventive methods of manufacturing a semiconductor device for improving device performance, and to the resulting unique high-performance device structure. In particular, this invention has improved charge mobility in FET devices by structurally imposing tensile and compression forces in a device substrate during device fabrication.
2) Description of the Prior Art
One of the main challenges of deep submicron transistor design is to improve its carrier mobility, so that its drive current is higher and resulted in higher ring oscillator speed. It is known that tensile stress favor electron's mobility, while compressive stress favor hole's mobility.
The importance of overcoming the various deficiencies noted above is evidenced by the extensive technological development directed to the subject, as documented by the relevant patent and technical literature. The closest and apparently more relevant technical developments in the patent literature can be gleaned by considering the following.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,825,529 and US 20040113217A1 Stress inducing spacers—Spacer structure for semiconductor devices formed in substrate, has two spacer structures, each comprising stress inducing material adjacent to both sidewall of one of device's gate terminal and its channel which applies mechanical stress—Inventor: Chidambarrao
U.S. Pat. No. 6,512,273: Method and structure for improving hot carrier immunity for devices with very shallow junctions—Complementary metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor includes silicon nitride and polysilicon spacers provided on edge surface gate of p-channel and n-channel devices=Inventor: Krivokapic, Zoran
U.S. Pat. No. 6,573,172: Methods for improving carrier mobility of PMOS and NMOS devices—Fabrication of semiconductor device by forming P-channel and N-channel metal oxide semiconductor transistors in wafer, forming tensile film on P-channel transistor and forming compressive film on N-channel transistor—Inventor: En, et al.
US20040191975 A1: Nitrogen Controlled Growth Of Dislocation Loop In Stress Enhanced Transistor—MOSFET fabricating method, involves implanting silicon in substrate to form dislocation loop in substrate below conduction channel, and doping substrate with nitrogen below conduction channel—Inventor: Weber et al.
US20040104405A1: Novel CMOS device—Improving mobility of holes and electrons within semiconductor device structure, involves forming first and second stress layers over p- and n-type metal oxide semiconductor device respectively—Inventor: Huang
US20030040158A1: Semiconductor device and method of fabricating the same—Semiconductor device includes first nitride layer containing tensile stress and second nitride layer containing compressive stress—Inventor: Saitoh, Takehiro
US 20040262784 High performance CMOS device structures and method of manufacture—A semiconductor device structure includes at least two field effect transistors formed on same substrate, the first field effect transistor includes a spacer having a first width, the second field effect transistor includes a compressive spacer having a second width, the first width being different than said second width. Preferably, the first width is narrower than the second width. A tensile stress dielectric film forms a barrier etch stop layer over the transistors. Inventors: Bruce B. Doris, Dureseti Chidambarrao, Suk Hoon Ku
U.S. Pat. No. 4,966,663: Method for forming a silicon membrane with controlled stress—Silicon membrane with predetermined stress characteristics—made by doping and electrochemical etching. Inventor: Mauger, Philip E.; Santa—A method for fabricating a silicon membrane with predetermined stress characteristics. A silicon substrate is doped to create a doped layer as thick as the desired thickness of the membrane. Stress within the doped layer is controlled by selecting the dopant based on its atomic diameter relative to silicon and controlling both the total concentration and concentration profile of the dopant. The membrane is then formed by electrochemically etching away the substrate beneath the doped layer.
The embodiments of the present invention provides a structure and a method of manufacturing a CMOS device which are characterized as follows.
A first example embodiment is a method of fabrication of a semiconductor device structure comprising the steps of:
Another example embodiment is a semiconductor device structure comprised of:
The above and below advantages and features are of representative embodiments only, and are not exhaustive and/or exclusive. They are presented only to assist in understanding the invention. It should be understood that they are not representative of all the inventions defined by the claims, to be considered limitations on the invention as defined by the claims, or limitations on equivalents to the claims. For instance, some of these advantages may be mutually contradictory, in that they cannot be simultaneously present in a single embodiment. Similarly, some advantages are applicable to one aspect of the invention, and inapplicable to others. Furthermore, certain aspects of the claimed invention have not been discussed herein. However, no inference should be drawn regarding those discussed herein relative to those not discussed herein other than for purposes of space and reducing repetition. Thus, this summary of features and advantages should not be considered dispositive in determining equivalence. Additional features and advantages of the invention will become apparent in the following description, from the drawings, and from the claims.
The features and advantages of a semiconductor device according to the present invention and further details of a process of fabricating such a semiconductor device in accordance with the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals designate similar or corresponding elements, regions and portions and in which:
In the example embodiments we disclosure techniques to put tensile stress under the nFET gate channel without affecting pFET channel by using composite stress spacer scheme. The schemes enhance electron mobility without compromising hole mobility. In addition, an example embodiment has a composite spacer scheme that allows the nFET and pFET transistors to have different spacer thickness, and thus Vt roll-off for individual device can be tailored.
In the example embodiments, we present techniques for achieving dual stress for device without introducing complicated process in the normal CMOS process sequence. The example embodiments are effective and thicker spacer width for pMOSFET before the source drain implant improves the Vt roll-off and substhreshold slope for pFET.
A first example method embodiment is shown in FIGS. 1 to 4. The first example method embodiment forms tensile stress spacers that create tensile stress on the substrate in both the PFET and NFET regions. A first implant into the tensile stress spacers relieves the substrate tensile stress created by the stress spacers on the substrate thus improving hole carrier mobility in the substrate near the channel regions.
Referring to
Still referring to
We then form NFET source/drain regions 34 adjacent to the NFET spacers 30.
As shown in
N type Ions 33 preferably are implanted into the substrate in the NFET region adjacent to the NFET spacer 30 to form NFET source/drain regions 34. (See
Referring to
G. tensile PFET spacers and tensile NFET spacers Next, we form tensile PFET spacers 44 on the PFET gate 22 and tensile NFET spacers 42 on the NFET gate 28. As shown in
The tensile nitride layer has a tensile stress of between about 8 Gdynes/cm2 and 16 Gdynes/cm2. This creates a tensile stress on the substrate.
The tensile spacers serves to put a tensile stress on the substrate close to the gate and channel region. The tensile stress from the NFET spacers 42 on the NFET channel is desirable since the stress improves electron mobility and the NFET performance.
Referring to
This step is important since the first ions relax the tensile nitride PFET spaces 44. The tensile stress spacer change to a non-tensile or relaxed spacer because of the ion implant into the spacer. When the heavy undoped first (e.g., Ge, Xe, etc.) ions bombard the SiN spacer lattice, some of the lattice bond are broken, making the strain in the spacer lattice reduce.
For example, the tensile PFET spacers 44 can have a tensile stress between 8 Gdynes/cm2 and 16 Gdynes/cm2 before the first ion implant and the neutralized PFET spacers 44A can have a tensile stress between about 2 Gdynes/cm2 and 4 Gdynes/cm2 after the ion implant.
The neutralized PFET spacers 44A and substrate in the PFET region 12 can have a Ge ion (e.g., Ge) concentration between 5E19/cm3 and 1E20/cm3 . The Ge ions can be implanted with a dose between 5E14/cm2 and 1E15/cm2 and at an energy between 30 kev and 35 kev.
The substrate in the PFET region 12 can have a Ge ion concentration between 5E19/cm3 and 1E20/cm3. The Ge ions are implanted with a dose between 5E14/cm2 and 1E15/cm2 and at an energy between 30 kev and 35 kev.
Referring to
As shown in
Also, the NFETs still have tensile stress spacers 42, which put stress on the NFET region 14 and enhances electron mobility.
Also pFET Vt roll-off is well control with source drain implant done after neutralized tensile spacer 44A formation, and NFET Vt roll-off problem is much less than pFET as it has much heavier As dopants.
The Ge, or Xe ions neutralized tensile stress on pFET spacer, and thereby eliminating degradation on hole mobility by tensioning the substrate. This does not affect electron mobility in nFET. On the other hand, Ge dopants also retard the diffusion of B dopants (e.g., PFET Source and drain regions), thereby improving threshold voltage versus Lpoly roll-off of pFET. After then a spike anneal is preferably performed.
In an option, the neutralized PFET spacers 44A (or spacers 44) have a first width and the first NFET spacers 30 have a second width where the first width and the second width are not approximately equal. The different spacer width allow us to form different PFET and NFET channel widths/dimensions. The neutralized PFET spacers 44A (or spacers 44) and the first NFET spacers 30 can be used as Implant masks to define the source and drain regions positions. The spacer widths can range from 450 to 650 angstroms. The first width is preferably at least 10% larger or smaller than the second width. The PFET channel can be between about 120% and 80% the width of said NFET channel. The PFET channel can be between 20% wider and 20% narrower than the NFET channel. The bigger the spacer width, the further the SID implant ion get to the gate channel and thereby causing less lateral short channel effect.
The dual spacer scheme allows NFET and pFET to have different spacer width, making the design optimization of nFET and pFET more flexible.
Although this invention has been described relative to specific insulating materials, conductive materials and apparatuses for depositing and etching these materials, it is not limited to the specific materials or apparatuses but only to their specific characteristics, such as conformal and nonconformal, and capabilities, such as depositing and etching, and other materials and apparatus can be substituted as is well understood by those skilled in the microelectronics arts after appreciating the present invention
The devices can comprised additional elements or sub-elements, such as LLD regions, etc.
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, each numerical value and range should be interpreted as being approximate as if the word about or approximately preceded the value of the value or range.
Given the variety of embodiments of the present invention just described, the above description and illustrations show not be taken as limiting the scope of the present invention defined by the claims.
While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. It is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements and procedures, and the scope of the appended claims therefore should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements and procedures.