The present application claims priority benefit of Chinese patent application No. 201210304223.8, filed on 23 Aug. 2012, entitled “SEMICONDUCTOR STRUCTURE AND METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING THE SAME”, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The present invention relates to semiconductor manufacturing technologies, and particularly, to a semiconductor structure and a method for manufacturing the same.
In the prior art, traditional semiconductor structures are manufactured according to a method described as follows (with reference to
However, the prior art has proposed to improve performance of semiconductor structures merely by forming a contact layer on the surface of source/drain regions, rather than modifying and improving performance of semiconductor devices by way of further introducing stress into channels on the basis of aforementioned structure.
Accordingly, it becomes urgent to find solutions to such problems as how to reduce contact resistance at source/drain regions at the meantime of introducing stress in channels for purposes of enhancing carrier mobility within channels and thereby further improving performance of semiconductor structures.
The present invention is intended to provide a semiconductor structure and a method for manufacturing the same, which are favorable for reducing contact resistance between a contact layer and source/drain regions and further enhancing stress in channels, so as to improve carrier mobility within the channels.
In one aspect, the present invention provides a method for manufacturing a semiconductor structure, which comprises:
In another aspect, the present invention further provides a semiconductor structure comprising a substrate, a gate stack, source/drain regions, a contact layer, an interlayer dielectric layer and contact plugs, wherein:
the gate stack is formed on the substrate;
the source/drain regions are formed respectively within the substrate on each side of the gate stack;
the contact layer is located on a surface of the source/drain regions;
the interlayer dielectric layer covers the source/drain regions and the gate stack;
a stress material layer is embedded into the source/drain regions and is formed on the contact layer; and
the contact plugs are embedded within the interlayer dielectric layer and are electrically connected to the stress material layer.
As compared to the prior art, the present invention has the following advantages.
Trenches are formed by etching source/drain regions, so as to increase the exposed area of the source/drain regions. Then, a contact layer is formed on the surface of the source/drain regions and a stress material is filled into the trenches, which is favorable for reducing effectively contact resistance between the contact layer and the source/drain regions at the meantime of introducing stress into channels, so as to enhance carrier mobility within channels and to improve performance of semiconductor structures.
Other additional features, objects and advantages of the present invention are made more evident according to perusal of the following detailed description of exemplary embodiment(s) in conjunction with accompanying drawings:
a) illustrates a top view of a semiconductor structure with hole-shaped contact plugs as shown in
b) illustrates a top view of a semiconductor structure with groove-shaped contact plugs as shown in
a) to
The same or similar reference signs in the drawings denote the same or similar elements.
Embodiments of the present invention are to be described in detail below, wherein examples of embodiments are illustrated in the drawings, in which same or similar reference signs throughout denote same or similar elements or elements having same or similar functions. It should be understood that embodiments described below in conjunction with the drawings are illustrative, and are provided for explaining the present invention only, and thus shall not be interpreted as a limit to the present invention.
Various embodiments or examples are provided here below to implement different structures of the present invention. To simplify the disclosure of the present invention, descriptions of components and arrangements of specific examples are given below. Of course, they are only illustrative and not limiting the present invention. Moreover, in the present invention, reference numbers and/or letters may be repeated in different examples. Such repetition is for purposes of simplicity and clarity, yet does not denote any relationship between respective embodiments and/or arrangements under discussion. Furthermore, the present invention provides various examples for various processes and materials. However, it is obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art that other processes and/or materials may be alternatively utilized. In addition, following structures where a first feature is “on/above” a second feature may include an embodiment in which the first feature and the second feature are formed to be in direct contact with each other, and may also include an embodiment in which another feature is formed between the first feature and the second feature such that the first and second features might not be in direct contact with each other. However, it should be noted that elements shown in appended drawings might not be drawn to scale. Description of the conventionally known elements, processing techniques and crafts are omitted from description of the present invention in order not to limit the present invention unnecessarily.
With reference to
In the present embodiment, the substrate 100 includes Si substrate (e.g. wafer). According to design requirements in the prior art (e.g. a P-type substrate or an N-type substrate), the substrate 100 may be of various doping configurations. The substrate 100 in other embodiments may further include other basic semiconductors, for example, germanium. Alternatively, the substrate 100 may include a compound semiconductor, such as SiC, GaAs, InAs or InP. Alternatively, the substrate 100 may otherwise be silicon-on-insulator (SOI). Particularly, an isolation region may be formed in the substrate 100, for example, a shallow trench isolation (STI) structure 120, for purposes of electrically isolating continuous semiconductor structures.
A gate stack has to be formed before formation of source/drain regions 110. The gate stack, which is formed on the substrate 100, comprises a gate dielectric layer 210 and a metal gate 220. At formation of the gate stack, the gate dielectric layer 210 is formed on the substrate 100, wherein the material for the gate dielectric layer 210 may be any one selected from a group consisting of SiO2, Si3N4 and combinations thereof, or may be a high K dielectric such as any one selected from a group consisting of HfO2, HfSiO, HfSiON, HfTaO, HfSiO, HfZrO, Al2O3, La2O3, ZrO2, LaAlO and combinations thereof. Next, the metal gate 220 is formed on the gate dielectric layer 210 by means of depositing any one selected from a group consisting of TaC, TiN, TaTbN, TaErN, TaYbN, TaSiN, HfSiN, MoSiN, RuTax, NiTax and combinations thereof. Particularly, sidewall spacers 240 may be formed on sidewalls of the gate stack by depositing-etching process for purposes of isolating the gate stack. The sidewall spacers 240 may be formed with any one selected from a group consisting of Si3N4, SiO2, Si2N2O, SiC and combinations thereof, and/or other materials as appropriate. The sidewall spacers 240 may be a multi-layer structure. In other embodiments, the gate stack may comprise a gate dielectric layer and a dummy gate, wherein the dummy gate may be formed on the gate dielectric layer by depositing, for example, Poly-Si, Poly-SiGe, amorphous Si and/or oxides. In subsequent gate replacement steps, the dummy gate is removed and then a metal gate is formed.
Next, source/drain regions 110 may be formed by implanting P-type or N-type dopants/impurities into the substrate. For example, with respect to PMOS, the source/drain regions 110 may be P-type doped SiGe. And with respect to NMOS, the source/drain regions 110 may be N-type doped Si. The source/drain regions 110 may be formed by means of processes including lithography, ion implantation, diffusion and/or other processes as appropriate. Then, the semiconductor structure is annealed so as to activate dopants in the source/drain regions 110. The annealing process includes rapid annealing, spike annealing and other processes as appropriate. In another embodiment, source/drain regions 110 may be raised source/drain structures formed by means of selective epitaxial growth, and the top of the epitaxial portion is higher than the bottom of the gate stack (herein, the term “bottom of the gate stack” indicates the boundary of the gate stack and the semiconductor substrate 100).
With reference to
Preferably, it is also applicable to form a plurality of linear trenches 111(a) at the source/drain regions 110 with self-assembly block copolymer, for purposes of further increasing exposed regions at the source/drain regions 110, as shown in
In other embodiments, trenches are not limited to hole-shaped trenches 111 or periodically linear trenches 111(a), but may be in any other shapes as appropriate, for example, the parallel linear trenches 111(b) with gradually increasing depth with respect to the shape the source/drain regions, as shown in
With reference to
Firstly, a metal layer is deposited to cover the source/drain regions 110 with hole-shaped trenches 111 and the gate stack; next, the semiconductor structure is annealed such that the metal layer reacts with Si in the source/drain regions 110; then a metal silicide layer 112 is formed on the surface of the source/drain regions 110 after annealing; and finally, portions of the metal layer which does not react to form the metal silicide layer are removed by means of selective etching
With reference to
With
The interlayer dielectric layer 300 is deposited to cover the substrate 100 and the gate stacks. The interlayer dielectric layer 300 may be formed by means of Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD), High-Density Plasma CVD, spin coating and/or other processes as appropriate. The material for the interlayer dielectric layer 300 may be any one selected from a group consisting of USG, doped USG (e.g. FSG, BSG, PSG, BPSG), low-k dielectric materials (e.g. black diamond, coral), and combinations thereof. The interlayer dielectric layer 300 may be a multi-layer structure.
Next, the interlayer dielectric layer 300 is etched by lithography, dry etching or wet etching till the stress material layer 113 is exposed to form contact holes. Then, contact metal 310 is filled into the contact holes to form contact plugs, whose bottoms are electrically connected to the stress material layer 113. The contact metal may be W, Cu, TiAl, Al or alloy.
After formation of the contact plugs, the contact plugs are planarized by Chemical-Mechanical Polish (CMP), such that the upper surface of the contact plugs becomes flushed with the upper surface of the metal gate 220 (herein, the term “flush with” means that the difference between heights of two objects is in the permitted range of technical tolerance).
With reference to
Then, manufacturing of the semiconductor structure is finished according to conventional semiconductor manufacturing processes.
After completion of aforesaid steps, the metal silicide layer is formed on the surface of the source/drain regions 110 that have been etched. Because the exposed area of the source/drain regions 110 after etching is larger than the exposed area of the source/drain regions 110 before etching, it can effectively increase the contact area between the metal silicide layer and the source/drain regions 110, which accordingly reduces contact resistance between the metal silicide layer and the source/drain regions 110 and enhances performance of the semiconductor structure. Additionally, owing to presence of the stress material layer formed by filling a stress material into the trenches formed at the source/drain regions 110 that have been etched, it is capable of applying tensile stress or compressive stress in channels between source and drain, which accordingly enhances carrier mobility within channels and further improves performance of the semiconductor structure.
With reference to
Preferably, trenches at the source/drain regions 110 are not limited to hole-shaped trenches 111, but may be a plurality of linear trenches 111(a) (as shown in
Optionally, source/drain regions 110 may be raised source/drain structures formed by a selective epitaxial growing method, wherein the top of epitaxial portions thereof are higher than the bottom of the gate stack.
Since structural constitution, materials and formation methods of respective parts of the semiconductor structure in respective embodiments may be the same as embodiments of the aforesaid method for manufacturing a semiconductor structure, and thus they are not described here in detail in order not to obscure. Although the exemplary embodiments and their advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various alternations, substitutions and modifications may be made to the embodiments without departing from the spirit of the present invention and the scope as defined by the appended claims. For other examples, it may be easily recognized by a person of ordinary skill in the art that the order of processing steps may be changed without departing from the scope of the present invention.
In addition, the scope to which the present invention is applied is not limited to the process, mechanism, manufacture, material composition, means, methods and steps described in the specific embodiments in the specification. According to the disclosure of the present invention, a person of ordinary skill in the art would readily appreciate from the disclosure of the present invention that the process, mechanism, manufacture, material composition, means, methods and steps currently existing or to be developed in future, which perform substantially the same functions or achieve substantially the same as that in the corresponding embodiments described in the present invention, may be applied according to the present invention. Therefore, it is intended that the scope of the appended claims of the present invention includes these process, mechanism, manufacture, material composition, means, methods or steps.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201210304223.8 | Aug 2012 | CN | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2012/081511 | 9/17/2012 | WO | 00 |