This invention relates to electronic devices and associated fabrication processes. More specifically, the invention relates to highly tensile dielectric films on heat sensitive substrates formed by UV curing, for example implemented in a strained transistor architecture for NMOS devices in which a highly tensile silicon nitride capping layer is provided on the source and drain regions to induce tensile strain in the NMOS channel region.
As transistors are scaled to smaller dimensions there is a need for higher switching speeds. One solution to increase transistor speed is to strain the silicon in the channel. Adding a small amount of strain to the silicon lattice structure is believed to promote higher electron and hole mobilities, which increase transistor drain current and device performance.
While the present invention is not limited by an particular theory, it is believed that when a silicon lattice is under tensile strain, its physical symmetry is broken, and with it the electronic symmetry. The lowest energy level of the conduction band is split, with two of the six original states dropping to a lower energy level and four rising to a higher energy level. This renders it more difficult for the electrons to be ‘scattered’ between the lowest energy states by a phonon, because there are only two states to occupy. Whenever electrons scatter, their motion is randomized. Reducing scatter increases the average distance an electron can travel before it is knocked off course, increasing its average velocity in the conduction direction. Also, distorting the lattice through tensile strain can distort the electron-lattice interaction in a way that reduces the electron's effective mass, a measure of how much it will accelerate in a given field. As a result, electron transport properties like mobility and velocity are improved and channel drive current for a given device design is increased in a strained silicon channel, leading to improved transistor performance.
Transistor strain has been generated in NMOS devices by using a highly tensile post-salicide silicon nitride capping layer on the source and drain regions. The stress from this capping layer is uniaxially transferred to the NMOS channel through the source-drain regions to create tensile strain in the NMOS channel. For example, a 1000 Å silicon nitride capping layer with a stress of 1E10 dynes/cm2 has been shown to provide a 10% NMOS IDSAT gain from tensile channel strain (Ghani, et al., A 90 nm High Volume Manufacturing Logic Technology Featuring Novel 45 nm Gate Length Strained Silicon CMOS Transistors, IEEE (2003), incorporated by reference herein in its entirety for all purposes). However, a tensile stress in excess of 1E10 dynes/cm2 is necessary for optimal results.
This highly tensile silicon nitride capping layer is generally deposited using a thermal CVD process, e.g., LPCVD. However, these processes generally require temperatures of greater than 500° C. to remove hydrogen from the capping layer thereby inducing tensile stress in the capping layers, and at these higher temperatures the underlying NiSi (silicide/salicide) substrate for the capping layer undergoes phase transformation that increases its resistivity. Hence, thermal budget constraints for future transistor architectures require the films to be deposited at temperatures below 450° C. A lower temperature thermal anneal may be used, for example, one in which the anneal temperature does not exceed 450° C. However, the duration of a thermal anneal process at that temperature that is necessary to obtain the benefit (e.g., about 2 hours) is not economically viable, and neither is the stress achieved sufficiently high.
Accordingly, new fabrication processes for generating NMOS transistor channel strain are needed.
The present invention addresses this need by providing a processing technique to generate a highly tensile dielectric layer on a heat sensitive substrate while not exceeding thermal budget constraints. Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is used to produce highly tensile films to be used, for example, in strained NMOS transistor architectures. UV curing of as-deposited PECVD silicon nitride films, for example, has been shown to bring about significant hydrogen removal and pore shrinkage, resulting in tremendous stress changes. Films with stresses of at least 1.65 E10 dynes/cm2 have been successfully produced using this technique. Other dielectric capping layer film materials show similar behavior, wherein the tensile stress increases after they have been UV-cured. In transistor implementations, the stress from a capping layer composed of such a film is uniaxially transferred to the NMOS channel through the source-drain regions to create tensile strain in the NMOS channel.
These and other aspects and advantages of the invention are described further below and with reference to the drawings.
Reference will now be made in detail to specific embodiments of the invention. Examples of the specific embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. While the invention will be described in conjunction with these specific embodiments, it will be understood that it is not intended to limit the invention to such specific embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. The present invention may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, well known process operations have not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention.
Introduction
The present invention provides a processing technique to generate a highly tensile dielectric layer on a heat sensitive substrate while not exceeding thermal budget constraints. Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is used to produce highly tensile films to be used, for example, in strained NMOS transistor architectures. UV curing of as-deposited PECVD silicon nitride films, for example, has been shown to produce films with stresses of at least 1.65 E10 dynes/cm2. Other dielectric capping layer film materials show similar results. In transistor implementations, the stress from a capping layer composed of such a film is uniaxially transferred to the NMOS channel through the source-drain regions to create tensile strain in NMOS channel. The architecture has been developed for 90 nm logic technology on 300 mm wafers, although it is not so limited in application.
Post-Deposition UV Treatment of Dielectric Layer
The post-deposition UV treatment, also referred to as UV curing, technique of the invention generates a highly tensile dielectric layer on a heat sensitive substrate without thermally degrading the substrate. In a particular implementation, source/drain salicide capping layer stress in NMOS transistors is increased without thermally degrading the salicide. The technique involves post-deposition UV treatment of a capping layer film on a heat sensitive substrate, e.g., a silicide (or salicide) such as NiSi. In a specific embodiment, the capping layer is composed of silicon nitride (SiN or Si3N4) deposited by PECVD and the invention is primarily described herein with respect to this embodiment. In alternative embodiments, however, the capping layer may be deposited by other thermal CVD process, e.g., low pressure CVD (LPCVD), atmospheric pressure CVD (APCVD) or other suitable techniques such as spin-coating, print-coating, and dip-coating, and be composed of other dielectric materials including silicon carbide (SiC), oxygen-doped silicon carbide (SiCO), nitrogen-doped silicon carbide (SiCN), silicon boron nitride (SiBN), silicon boron carbide (SiBC), and silicon oxide (SiO or SiO2), and the invention should be understood to apply to these capping layer materials as well.
PECVD films in general contain a considerable amount of hydrogen. For example, PECVD silicon nitride films contain generally contain about 15-30% hydrogen in the form of Si—H and N—H bonds. Again, while the invention is not limited by this theory, it is generally accepted that irreversible tensile stress develops in PECVD films from the reduction of the amount of hydrogen in the film, and due to shrinkage of voids. The loss of hydrogen and shrinkage of voids result in a volume reduction in the film. But the constraint of the substrate prevents any lateral shrinkage, thus imposing tensile strains in the film. The change in hydrogen concentration has been shown to be proportional to the irreversible stress change. Thermal annealing at temperatures in excess of 500° C., e.g., 600° C., are best known to remove the hydrogen from such a film (silicon nitride) by providing sufficient energy to attain the right bonding configuration and stoichiometry, in particular the removal of H and formation of extended Si—N bonds.
It has now been found that UV irradiation is a source of energy that makes compressive films tensile and tensile films even more tensile. It is believed that the photons from the UV source for example, a “H bulb” of a Hg lamp having a nominal wavelength from about 150 nm to 800 nm and an intensity of between 1 μW/cm2 and 10 W/cm2, provide sufficient energy to break most H-bonds in a dielectric film, e.g., for a silicon nitride film, the Si—H and N—H bonds. UV irradiation has a penetration depth sufficient to treat a film of full thickness, for example, between about 50 and 30,000 Å, e.g., about 300-1500, such as 700 Å. A following gas, such as He, Argon, N2 or CO2 may be used as a purging gas during UV curing. Other reactive gases such as O2, CO2, N2O, H2 H2O vapor, and vapors of alcohols (such as methanol, ethanol, isopropal alcohol [IPA]), may be used to further modulate the UV curing process. The process pressure may vary between 10−3 to 1000 Ton. At a moderate substrate temperature (e.g., between about 25-500° C.) and UV exposure, the H atoms from neighboring broken bonds combine to form H2 that diffuses out of the film. The removal of hydrogen leaves behind micro voids in the film, along with the voids formed during deposition. The photon energy from the UV source, coupled with the thermal energy due to the wafer temperature cause these voids to shrink (in order to minimize surface energy). This shrinkage imposes significant tensile strains in the film.
The UV treatment may be implemented in a continuous mode or pulsing mode to further optimize the end result on the final film. In a continuous exposure mode, the film is irradiated with a continuous UV source. In a pulsing mode, the film is exposed to pulses of UV radiation, leading to a sequence of curing/quenching/curing/quenching events. By modulating the pulse length and the duty-cycle of the pulses, the film stress and other properties may be further optimized.
Table 1, below, provides suitable PECVD deposition conditions for a silicon nitride layer suitable as a capping layer in accordance with the present invention:
Table 2, below, provides an example of typical UV curing conditions for a silicon nitride layer suitable as a capping layer in accordance with the present invention:
The initial as-deposited structure and composition of the film influences the extent of the stress change and final stress that may be induced by UV curing. Films that are highly porous and that contain considerable hydrogen show a higher change in stress after UV curing. Increased hydrogen removal, and associated shrinkage are the probable causes for this behavior. An illustration of this effect is shown in
The final stress on a film is a combination of the initial as-deposited stress and change in stress after UV curing. Silicon nitride films with a stress of at least 1.65 E10 dynes/cm2 have been achieved using the UV curing technique of the present invention, thus demonstrating the ability to produce high stress dielectric films without high temperature (e.g., >450° C.) thermal processing. Highly tensile silicon nitride films obtained using this method can be used in strained NMOS transistor structures to improve the device performance.
Integration of Different Stresses
Another aspect of the present invention that provides advantages over prior processes is the ability to use the UV curing process to integrate multiple different regions of dielectric stress on a common substrate. Because the UV curing process is optical in nature, selective masking may be used to limit exposure of a dielectric region to the UV radiation. In this way, using well known photolithographic masking techniques, some regions of a substrate, for example a semiconductor wafer, may be masked to prevent UV exposure and the associated increase in tensile stress, while, in the same UV irradiation step, other regions may be exposed so that tensile stress in those regions is increased. Similarly, if multiple deposition and/or UV irradiation steps are used, different regions of the substrate may be subjected to varying degrees of UV exposure by masking in one step but not another, for example. Thus, regions of compressive stress and/or varying degrees of tensile stress may be efficiently formed on the same substrate without thermal damage to other elements on the substrate, such as an underlying heat sensitive material.
According to this aspect of the invention UV curing may be used to continuously modulate the stress of dielectric films including silicon nitride, silicon carbide and silicon oxide for a variety of semiconductor manufacturing applications. The resulting films, depending on the process conditions of the UV cure and the starting film stress, can exhibit tunable stress values from compressive to tensile. This approach to achieve high tensile stress of silicon nitride films can be readily used in front-end spacer applications for 65 and 45 nm technologies, for example.
Transistor Architecture
Apparatus
The present invention can be implemented in many different types of apparatus. Generally, the apparatus will include one or more chambers (sometimes referred to as process vessels) that house one or more substrates, e.g., semiconductor wafers, and are suitable for wafer processing. At least one chamber will include a UV source. A single chamber may be employed for all operations of the invention or separate chambers may be used. Each chamber may house one or more wafers for processing. The one or more chambers maintain the wafer in a defined position or positions (with or without motion within that position, e.g. rotation, vibration, or other agitation) during deposition and post-deposition UV curing processes. The apparatus generally includes a heating platen for operations in which the wafer is to be heated. The present invention is preferably implemented in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reactor. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a Vector™ or Sequel™ reactor, produced by Novellus Systems of San Jose, Calif., may be used to implement the invention.
Within the reactor, a wafer pedestal 618 supports a substrate 616. The pedestal typically includes a chuck, a fork, or lift pins to hold and transfer the substrate during and between the deposition and/or plasma treatment reactions. The chuck may be an electrostatic chuck, a mechanical chuck or various other types of chuck as are available for use in the industry and/or research.
The process gases are introduced via inlet 612. Multiple source gas lines 610 are connected to manifold 608. The gases may be premixed or not. Appropriate valving and mass flow control mechanisms are employed to ensure that the correct gases are delivered during the deposition and plasma treatment phases of the process. In case the chemical precursor(s) is delivered in the liquid form, liquid flow control mechanisms are employed. The liquid is then vaporized and mixed with other process gases during its transportation in a manifold heated above its vaporization point before reaching the deposition chamber.
Process gases exit chamber 624 via an outlet 622. A vacuum pump 626 (e.g., a one or two stage mechanical dry pump and/or a turbomolecular pump) typically draws process gases out and maintains a suitably low pressure within the reactor by a close loop controlled flow restriction device, such as a throttle valve or a pendulum valve.
The chamber 624 may also house a UV light source 630 instead of the gas showerhead 614. The light source may be mounted outside the chamber above a window that provides the vacuum isolation. UV light source 630 may be a mercury (Hg), Xenon (Xe), or Deuterium (D2) lamp or other source of UV radiation of the required characteristics, such as excimer lamps (e.g. XeCl, KrF), an in-situ or ex-situ plasma source, or a laser, e.g., an excimer laser. In a specific embodiment, the UV source is a Hg lamp that directs UV radiation on the substrate at an intensity of between 1 μW/cm2 and 10 W/cm2 in the range of 150 to 800 nanometers.
Note that the apparatus depicted in
While the invention has been primarily described and exemplified with respect to silicon nitride films herein, it is not so limited.
It should be understood that the dielectrics may be deposited using precursors other than the silane, ammonia and nitrogen used in the described embodiment. It is also possible to introduce additives in the film, such as a porogen, with the express purpose of removing it during the UV cure to bring about film shrinkage (and correspondingly increase the tensile stress).
Also, the UV curing technique of the present invention is not limited to the single step UV exposure of a deposited film, but also applies to simultaneous UV and thermal and other treatments, or other engineered multi-step processes. For example, while it is preferable both from the perspective of process efficiency and effectiveness to deposit the dielectric to be UV cured in a single step, it is also possible to deposit and cure the dielectric in multiple repeating steps to build up a laminate dielectric with increased tensile stress and without the adverse impacts associated with thermal processing. The film stress will change with respect to the length of the treatment time, UV intensity, UV spectrum, UV operation mode such as pulse and continuous, curing environment, film thickness, and wafer curing temperature.
Although the foregoing invention has been described in some detail for purposes of clarity of understanding, it will be apparent that certain changes and modifications may be practiced within the scope of the appended claims. It should be noted that there are many alternative ways of implementing both the process and compositions of the present invention. Accordingly, the present embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details given herein.
All references cited herein are incorporated by reference for all purposes.
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