This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-024494, filed Jan. 31, 2005, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a semiconductor device of a MOS structure and, more particularly, to a semiconductor device comprising a hollow area in a semiconductor substrate, i.e. having a SON (Silicon on Nothing) structure and a manufacturing method of the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a SON structure comprising a hollow layer inside a Si substrate, the smallest parasitic capacitance can be implemented in a substrate formed of Si since the relative dielectric constant of the hollow layer is 1. Similarly to a SOI (Silicon on Insulator) structure in which a silicon oxide film is embedded, an element area can be protected by the hollow layer, from carriers generated by cosmic rays. In addition, the SON structure has high process matching property with a gate-all-around MOSFET which is most excellent in the immunity to short channel effect, of currently proposed MOSFETS. For this reason, the SON structure is hopeful in application to a high-performance ultra small MOSFET.
On the other hand, it is known that the condition of the band structure is changed due to influence of in-plane tensile strain and the mobility of Si subjected to epitaxial growth on SiGe is increased as compared with unstrained Si. Thus, it is expected that a high-speed low-power-consumption LSI can be implemented by combining strained Si and the SON structure.
In a conventional manufacturing method of the SON structure, for example, surface atoms are diffused by thermal treatment after digging a trench on a Si substrate (Document 1: T. Sato, “SON-MOSFET using ESS (Empty Space in Silicon) technique for SoC applications”, Technical Digest of International Electrical Devices Meeting, pp. 809-812, 2001). According to another conventional method, SiGe is selectively etched in the Si/SiGe structure (Document 2: S. Monfray, “First 80 nm SON-MOSFETs with perfect morphology and high electrical performance”, Technical Digest of International Electrical Devices Meeting, pp. 645-648, 2001). It has been clarified, however, that a SON substrate having preferable strained Si cannot be manufactured in these methods.
In the method of Document 1, high-temperature thermal treatment of 1000° C. or higher needs to be carried out to induce Si migration. Since Ge is easily diffused in surface Si at such a high temperature, the strained Si structure cannot be maintained.
In the method of Document 2, overetching easily occurs and the Si bridge of the SON area thereby collapses, at the time of etching the SiGe. Moreover, if the SON substrate is applied to the gate-all-around MOSFET, a leak current is easily generated between the source and drain. In other words, selectively forming an insulation layer varied in thickness on a Si bridge and a semiconductor layer supporting the Si bridge has not been disclosed. For this reason, according to the prior art, a gate insulation film is formed simultaneously on the Si bridged and the semiconductor layer supporting the Si bridge, forming a uniform and preferable insulation film is difficult at the cavity portion due to the complicated structure, and leak current is increased at the angular portion due to concentration of the electric field.
As described above, in the conventional manufacturing method of the SON structure, manufacturing a strained SON structure of high yield and high quality is difficult, and manufacturing a preferable gate-all-around MOSFET is difficult.
An aspect of the present invention is a semiconductor device comprising a support substrate, a first semiconductor layer formed on the support substrate, a top surface of the first semiconductor layer having a recess or hole formed thereon, a second semiconductor layer formed on the first semiconductor layer, a part of the second semiconductor layer crossing the recess or hole of the first semiconductor layer, a gate electrode formed via a gate insulation film to surround the crossing portion of the second semiconductor layer, the gate electrode being processed in a gate pattern, a portion immediately under the second semiconductor layer being processed in like pattern of the second semiconductor layer, source and drain areas formed on the second semiconductor layer in association with the gate pattern, and a sidewall insulation film formed on a sidewall surface of the recess or hole of the first semiconductor layer, having a thickness greater than a thickness of the gate insulation film.
Another aspect of the present invention is a semiconductor device comprising a support substrate, a first semiconductor layer formed in an shape of separated islands or formed to have insular protrusions, on the support substrate, a second semiconductor layer formed on the first semiconductor layer, having a part formed to connect adjacent islands or adjacent protrusions to each other, a gate electrode formed via a gate insulation film to surround the crossing portion of the second semiconductor layer, the gate electrode being processed in a gate pattern, a portion immediately under the second semiconductor layer being processed in like pattern of the second semiconductor layer, source and drain areas formed on the second semiconductor layer in association with the gate pattern, and a sidewall insulation film formed on a sidewall surface of the first semiconductor layer, having a thickness greater than a thickness of the gate insulation film.
Still another aspect of the present invention is a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, comprising-forming a second semiconductor layer on a first semiconductor layer, selectively etching the first and second semiconductor layers on both sides of a channel formation area of a transistor so as to make the channel formation area linear, forming an oxide film on sidewall surfaces of the first semiconductor layer exposed by the etching, so as to oxidize an overall body of the first semiconductor layer in the channel formation area, forming a cavity portion under the second semiconductor layer in the channel formation area by removing the oxide film, forming a gate electrode through a gate insulation film so as to surround the second semiconductor layer in the channel formation area, processing the gate electrode in a gate pattern and conducting processing, immediately under the second semiconductor layer, in a pattern equal to a pattern of the second semiconductor layer, and forming source and drain areas on the second semiconductor layer in association with the gate pattern.
Further another aspect of the present invention is a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, comprising forming a second semiconductor layer on a first semiconductor layer, selectively etching the first and second semiconductor layers on both sides of a channel formation area of a transistor so as to make the channel formation area linear, forming an oxide film on sidewall surfaces of the first semiconductor layer exposed by the etching, so as to oxidize an overall body of the first semiconductor layer in the channel formation area, a thickness of the oxide film in the channel formation area being greater than a thickness of the oxide film in areas other than the channel formation area, forming a cavity portion under the second semiconductor layer in the channel formation area by removing the oxide film, while leaving a part of the oxide film on the sidewall surfaces of the first semiconductor layer, forming a gate electrode through a gate insulation film so as to surround the second semiconductor layer in the channel formation area, processing the gate electrode in a gate pattern and conducting processing, immediately under the second semiconductor layer, in a pattern equal to a pattern of the second semiconductor layer, and forming source and drain areas on the second semiconductor layer in association with the gate pattern.
Embodiments of the present invention will be explained below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
A strain-relaxed SiGe layer (first semiconductor layer) 11 is formed on a support substrate 10. A groove portion (cavity portion) 13 is formed by selectively etching a surface portion of the SiGe layer 11. The groove portion 13 is formed such that the SiGe layer 11 has two island-shaped protrusions spaced from each other with a predetermined distance. A strained Si layer (second semiconductor layer) 12 is formed on the protrusions of the SiGe layer 11. A part of the strained Si layer 12 is formed to cross the groove portion 13 formed between the two protrusions.
A gate electrode 15 is formed via a gate insulation film 14 so as to surround the strained Si layer 12 positioned above the groove portion 13. Most parts of the gate electrode 15 are processed in a gate pattern, but the gate electrode 15 is formed to fill the groove portion 13 immediately under the strained Si layer 12. A source area 17 and a drain area 18 are formed on the strained Si layer 12 so as to sandwich a channel area 16 determined by the gate electrode 15.
The strained Si layer 12 is formed on the SiGe layer 11 having a higher oxidation speed than Si and the SiGe layer 11 is partially removed under the strained Si layer 12. In other words, the drawing shows what is called a strained SON structure, having the groove portion 13 at a part of the SiGe layer 11 under the strained Si layer 12. W1 represents a channel width, W2 represents a source/drain width, and W3 represents an overetching width.
For comparison, the SON structure manufactured in the method of Document 2 is shown in
To certainly remove the SiGe layer 11 in the area which is to be SON, however, the etching amount of SiGe must have a margin and, thus, the SiGe layer 11 serving as the support layer needs to be further etched. For this reason, overetching width W8 greater than the overetching width W3 of
To solve such a problem that the Si bridge in the SON area is easily broken down by overetching, the present embodiment employs a process of oxidizing the SiGe layer and removing the oxidized portion.
The relaxed SiGe layer 11 may be subjected to epitaxial growth on the Si substrate which serves as the support substrate 10 or on the SOI substrate. In addition, the relaxed SiGe layer 11 may be formed by employing both the epitaxial growth and a recently proposed oxidation and concentration (T. Tezuka, “A Novel Fabrication Technique of Ultrathin and Relaxed SiGe Buffer Layers with High Ge Fraction for Sub-100 nm Strained Silicon-on-Insulator MOSFETs”, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 40, pp. 2866-2874, 2001). The manufacturing method is not limited to these methods. The strained Si layer 12 is formed on the relaxed SiGe layer 11 by epitaxial growth.
First, an active area of the device is formed on the strained Si substrate manufactured as described above, as shown in
Next, a SiGe oxide 32 is formed by oxidizing side surfaces of the SiGe layer 11 as shown in
Next, the strained SON structure is formed by peeling off the SiGe oxide 32 and the mask layer 31 by wet etching, as shown in
In the present embodiment, as described above, the strained SON structure can be formed by only conducting oxidation and peeling of the oxide film, i.e. very simple and highly controllable processes after formation of the active area. For this reason, overetching width W3 can be easily reduced as compared with the manufacturing method employing selective plasma etching of SiGe or the like. In addition, since in-plane uniformity is improved and the silicon oxide film can be etched at a high selection ratio to silicon, processing damage can be reduced.
Therefore, high-quality strained SON structure can be manufactured at high yield and a preferable gate-all-around MOSFET can be produced.
The groove portion 13 and the relaxed SiGe layer 11 are in contact with each other in the first embodiment, but the SiGe oxide 32 may be left therebetween as shown in
The above-described structure can be implemented in the following manner.
In the step of oxidizing the side surfaces of the SiGe layer 11 as shown in
Next, wet etching is conducted, and the SiGe oxide 32 under the strained Si layer 12 is thereby completely removed as shown in
After the SiGe oxide 32 is completely removed as shown in
In the present embodiment, as described above, the strained SON structure can be formed by only conducting oxidation and peeling of the oxide film, i.e. very simple and highly controllable processes after formation of the active area and the same advantage as that of the first embodiment can be obtained. Moreover, since the sidewall insulation film 32 of a low dielectric constant material having a greater thickness than the gate insulation film 14 is formed on the sidewall surface of the relaxed SiGe layer 11, the gate electrode 15 under the strained Si layer 12 is insulated from the source/drain by the sidewall insulation film 32. Therefore, the leak current flowing between the gate and the source/drain can be reduced without operation delay as compared with a case of insulating the gate electrode and the source/drain by the thin gate insulation film 14 alone.
The present embodiment has a strained SON structure in which the strained Si layer 12 and strain-relaxed Si layer 62 are formed on a strained SiGe layer 61 and the cavity portion 13 exists under the strained Si layer 12.
To explain the process of manufacturing the strained SON structure according to the present embodiment, main steps are shown in schematic views of
First, as shown in
Next, as shown in
Next, as shown in
Next, as shown in
Next, the strained SON structure is formed by peeling off the SiGe oxide 32 and the mask layer 31 by wet etching, as shown in
In the present embodiment, the groove portion 13 and the relaxed SiGe layer 11 are in contact with each other, but the SiGe oxide 32 may be left therebetween similarly to the first embodiment. In this case, the gate electrode 15 and the source/drain 17, 18 are insulated from each other by the SiGe oxide 32, as shown in
In the present embodiment, an area which does not serve as the cavity portion is the strained SiGe layer 61 and the oxidization speed of the strained SiGe is approximately one quarter of the relaxed SiGe. Therefore, overetching width W4 shown in
The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above. In the embodiments, the Si substrate or SOI substrate is used as the support substrate, but any substrate allowing the first semiconductor layer to be grown up can be used. The first semiconductor layer is formed of SiGe and the second semiconductor layer is formed of Si, but the semiconductor materials can be arbitrarily be changed in accordance with conditions.
In addition, the first and second semiconductor layers are formed such that the source/drain and channel areas protrude as shown in
One channel area is formed between the source and drain. As shown in
Additional advantages and modifications will readily occur to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the invention in its broader aspects is not limited to the specific details and representative embodiments shown and described herein. Accordingly, various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the general inventive concept as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2005-024494 | Jan 2005 | JP | national |