A high performance HfSiON/TaN NMOSFET fabricated using a gate-last process

A gate-last process for fabricating HfSiON/TaN n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect transistors(NMOSFETs)is presented.In the process,a HfSiON gate dielectric with an equivalent oxide thickness of 10 A was prepared by a simple physical vapor deposition method.Poly-Si was deposited on the HfSiON gate dielectric as a dummy gate.After the source/drain formation,the poly-Si dummy gate was removed by tetramethylammonium hydroxide(TMAH)wet-etching and replaced by a TaN metal gate.Because the metal gate was formed after the ion-implant doping activation process,the effects of the high temperature process on the metal gate were avoided.The fabricated device exhibits good electrical characteristics,including good driving ability and excellent sub-threshold characteristics.The device’s gate length is 73 nm,the driving current is 117μA/μm under power supply voltages of VGS=VDS=1.5 V and the off-state current is only 4.4 nA/μm.The lower effective work function of TaN on HfSiON gives the device a suitable threshold voltage(~0.24 V)for high performance NMOSFETs.The device’s excellent performance indicates that this novel gate-last process is practical for fabricating high performance MOSFETs.     

Improvement of Operation Characteristics for MONOS Charge Trapping Flash Memory with SiGe Buried Channel

We propose and investigate a novel metal/SiO_2/Si_3N_4/SiO_2/SiGe charge trapping flash memory structure(named as MONOS), utilizing Si Ge as the buried channel. The fabricated memory device demonstrates excellent programerasable characteristics attributed to the fact that more carriers are generated by the smaller bandgap of Si Ge during program/erase operations. A flat-band voltage shift 2.8 V can be obtained by programming at +11 V for 100 us. Meanwhile, the memory device exhibits a large memory window of ~7.17 V under ±12 V sweeping voltage, and a negligible charge loss of 18% after 104 s' retention. In addition, the leakage current density is lower than 2.52 × 10~(-7) A·cm~(-2) below a gate breakdown voltage of 12.5 V. Investigation of leakage current-voltage indicates that the Schottky emission is the predominant conduction mechanisms for leakage current. These desirable characteristics are ascribed to the higher trap density of the Si_3N_4 charge trapping layer and the better quality of the interface between the SiO_2 tunneling layer and the Si Ge buried channel. Therefore, the application of the Si Ge buried channel is very promising to construct 3 D charge trapping NAND flash devices with improved operation characteristics.     

Dependence of short channel length on negative/positive bias temperature instability (NBTI/PBTI) for 3D FinFET devices

A comprehensive study of the negative and positive bias temperature instability(NBTI/PBTI)of 3D FinFET devices with different small channel lengths is presented.It is found while with the channel lengths shrinking from 100 nm to 30 nm,both the NBTI characteristics of p-FinFET and PBTI characteristics of n-FinFET turn better.Moreover,the channel length dependence on NBTI is more serious than that on PBTI.Through the analysis of the physical mechanism of BTI and the simulation of 3-D stress in the FinFET device,a physical mechanism of the channel length dependence on NBTI/PBTI is proposed.Both extra fluorine passivation in the corner of bulk oxide and stronger channel stress in p-FinFETs with shorter channel length causes less NBTI issue,while the extra nitrogen passivation in the corner of bulk oxide induces less PBTI degradation as the channel length decreasing for n-FinFETs.The mechanism well matches the experimental result and provides one helpful guide for the improvement of reliability issues in the advanced FinFET process.     

Improved performance of MoS2 FET by in situ NH3 doping in ALD Al2O3 dielectric

Since defects such as traps and oxygen vacancies exist in dielectrics, it is difficult to fabricate a high-performance MoS$_{2}$ field-effect transistor (FET) using atomic layer deposition (ALD) Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$ as the gate dielectric layer. In this paper, NH$_{3}$ in situ doping, a process treatment approach during ALD growth of Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$, is used to decrease these defects for better device characteristics. MoS$_{2}$ FET has been well fabricated with this technique and the effect of different NH$_{3}$ in situ doping sequences in the growth cycle has been investigated in detail. Compared with counterparts, those devices with NH$_{3}$ in situ doping demonstrate obvious performance enhancements: $I_{\rm on}/I_{\rm off}$ is improved by one order of magnitude, from $1.33\times 10^{5}$ to $3.56\times 10^{6}$, the threshold voltage shifts from $-0.74 $ V to $-0.12$ V and a small subthreshold swing of 105 mV/dec is achieved. The improved MoS$_{2}$ FET performance is attributed to nitrogen doping by the introduction of NH$_{3}$ during the Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$ ALD growth process, which leads to a reduction in the surface roughness of the dielectric layer and the repair of oxygen vacancies in the Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$ layer. Furthermore, the MoS$_{2}$ FET processed by in situ NH$_{3}$ doping after the Al and O precursor filling cycles demonstrates the best performance; this may be because the final NH$_{3}$ doping after film growth restores more oxygen vacancies to screen more charge scattering in the MoS$_{2}$ channel. The reported method provides a promising way to reduce charge scattering in carrier transport for high-performance MoS$_{2 }$ devices.     

Crystallization behaviors of ultrathin Al-doped HfO_2 amorphous films grown by atomic layer deposition

In this work, ultrathin pure HfO_2 and Al-doped HfO_2films(about 4-nm thick) are prepared by atomic layer deposition and the crystallinities of these films before and after annealing at temperatures ranging from 550℃ to 750℃ are analyzed by grazing incidence x-ray diffraction. The as-deposited pure HfO_2 and Al-doped HfO_2 films are both amorphous. After550-℃ annealing, a multiphase consisting of a few orthorhombic, monoclinic and tetragonal phases can be observed in the pure HfO_2 film while the Al-doped HfO_2 film remains amorphous. After annealing at 650℃ and above, a great number of HfO_2 tetragonal phases, a high-temperature phase with higher dielectric constant, can be stabilized in the Al-doped HfO_2 film. As a result, the dielectric constant is enhanced up to about 35. The physical mechanism of the phase transition behavior is discussed from the viewpoint of thermodynamics and kinetics.