Chia-Hong Jan

A 90-nm logic technology featuring strained-silicon

A leading-edge 90-nm technology with 1.2-nm physical gate oxide, 45-nm gate length, strained silicon, NiSi, seven layers of Cu interconnects, and low-/spl kappa/ CDO for high-performance dense logic is presented. Strained silicon is used to increase saturated n-type and p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) drive currents by 10% and 25%, respectively. Using selective epitaxial Si/sub 1-x/Ge/sub x/ in the source and drain regions, longitudinal uniaxial compressive stress is introduced into the p-type MOSEFT to increase hole mobility by >50%. A tensile silicon nitride-capping layer is used to introduce tensile strain into the n-type MOSFET and enhance electron mobility by 20%. Unlike all past strained-Si work, the hole mobility enhancement in this paper is present at large vertical electric fields in nanoscale transistors making this strain technique useful for advanced logic technologies. Furthermore, using piezoresistance coefficients it is shown that significantly less strain (/spl sim/5 /spl times/) is needed for a given PMOS mobility enhancement when applied via longitudinal uniaxial compression versus in-plane biaxial tension using the conventional Si/sub 1-x/Ge/sub x/ substrate approach.

A 90 nm logic technology featuring 50 nm strained silicon channel transistors, 7 layers of Cu interconnects, low k ILD, and 1 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ SRAM cell

A leading edge 90 nm technology with 1.2 nm physical gate oxide, 50 nm gate length, strained silicon, NiSi, 7 layers of Cu interconnects, and low k carbon-doped oxide (CDO) for high performance dense logic is presented. Strained silicon is used to increase saturated NMOS and PMOS drive currents by 10-20% and mobility by >50%. Aggressive design rules and unlanded contacts offer a 1.0 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ 6-T SRAM cell using 193 nm lithography.

A 22nm SoC platform technology featuring 3-D tri-gate and high-k/metal gate, optimized for ultra low power, high performance and high density SoC applications

A leading edge 22nm 3-D tri-gate transistor technology has been optimized for low power SoC products for the first time. Low standby power and high voltage transistors exploiting the superior short channel control, <; 65mV/dec subthreshold slope and <;40mV DIBL, of the Tri-Gate architecture have been fabricated concurrently with high speed logic transistors in a single SoC chip to achieve industry leading drive currents at record low leakage levels. NMOS/PMOS Idsat=0.41/0.37mA/um at 30pA/um Ioff, 0.75V, were used to build a low standby power 380Mb SRAM capable of operating at 2.6GHz with 10pA/cell standby leakages. This technology offers mix-and-match flexibility of transistor types, high-density interconnect stacks, and RF/mixed-signal features for leadership in mobile, handheld, wireless and embedded SoC products.

A 32nm SoC platform technology with 2 nd generation high-k/metal gate transistors optimized for ultra low power, high performance, and high density product applications

A leading edge 32nm high-k/metal gate transistor technology has been optimized for SoC platform applications that span a wide range of power, performance, and feature space. This technology has been developed to be modular, offering mix-and-match transistors, interconnects, RF/analog passive elements, embedded memory, and noise mitigation options. The low gate leakage of the high-k gate dielectric enables the triple transistor architecture to support ultra low power, high performance, and high voltage tolerant I/O devices concurrently. Embedded memories include high density (0.148 um2) and low voltage (0.171 um2) SRAMs as well as secure OTP fuses. Analog/RF SoC features include high precision, high quality passives (resistors, capacitors and inductors) and deep-nwell noise isolation.

A high performance 180 nm generation logic technology

A 180 nm generation logic technology has been developed with high performance 140 nm L/sub GATE/ transistors, six layers of aluminum interconnects and low-/spl epsi/ SiOF dielectrics. The transistors are optimized for a reduced 1.3-1.5 V operation to provide high performance and low power. The interconnects feature high aspect ratio metal lines for low resistance and fluorine doped SiO/sub 2/ inter-level dielectrics for reduced capacitance. 16 Mbit SRAMs with a 5.59 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ 6-T cell size have been built on this technology as a yield and reliability test vehicle.

A 1.1 GHz 12

A low-power, high-speed SRAM macro is designed in a 65 nm ultra-low-power (ULP) logic technology for mobile applications. The 65 nm strained silicon technology improves transistor performance/leakage tradeoff, which is essential to achieve fast SRAM access speed at substantially low operating voltage and standby leakage. The 1 Mb SRAM macro features a 0.667 mum2 low-leakage memory cell and can operate over a wide range of supply voltages from 1.2 V to 0.5 V. It achieves operating frequency of 1.1 GHz and 250 MHz at 1.2 V and 0.7 V, respectively. The SRAM leakage is reduced to 12 muA/Mb at the data retention voltage of 0.5 V. The measured bitcell leakage from the SRAM array is ~2 pA/bit at retention voltage with integrated leakage reduction schemes.

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We report a very high performance 100 nm gate length CMOS transistor structure operating at 1.2-1.5 V. These transistors are incorporated in a 180 nm logic technology generation. Various process enhancements are incorporated to significantly improve transistor current drive capability relative to the results published by Yang et al. (1998). Unique transistor features responsible for achieving high performance are described. NMOS and PMOS devices demonstrate drive current of 1.04 mA//spl mu/m and 0.46 mA//spl mu/m respectively at 1.5 V and 3 nA//spl mu/m I/sub OFF/. These are the best drive currents reported to date at fixed I/sub OFF/. They represents 10% drive current improvement for both NMOS and PMOS devices relative to the results published by Yang without any change in gate-oxide thickness. High performance is demonstrated down to 1.2 V. Inverter delay of less than 10 psec is reported at 1.5 V at very moderate I/sub OFF/ values.

A/Mb-Leakage SRAM Design in 65 nm Ultra-Low-Power CMOS Technology With Integrated Leakage Reduction for Mobile Applications

A 0.25 /spl mu/m generation logic technology has been developed with high performance transistors and five layers of planarized interconnect. The transistors are optimized for 1.8 V operation to provide high performance, low power and good reliability. The interconnects feature extensive use of planarization and high aspect ratio metal lines. 4 Mbit SRAMs with a 10.26 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ 6-T cell size have been built on this technology.

100 nm gate length high performance/low power CMOS transistor structure

A leading edge 65nm logic process technology employing uni-axial strained silicon transistors has been optimized for ultra low power products. Record PMOS/NMOS drive currents of 0.38/0.66 mA/mum, respectively, have been achieved at 1.2V and off-state leakage of 100 pA/mum. Greater than 1000times reduction of SRAM cell standby leakage through implementation of sleep transistors and other leakage suppression schemes are also discussed

A high performance 0.25 /spl mu/m logic technology optimized for 1.8 V operation

The impact of silicon technology scaling trends and the associated technological innovations on RF CMOS device characteristics are examined. The application of novel strained silicon and high-k/metal gate technologies not only benefits digital systems, but significantly improves RF performance. The peak cut-off frequency (fT) doubles from 209 GHz in the 90 nm node to 445 GHz at the 32 nm node. 1/f flicker noise reduces by an order of magnitude from the 0.13 um node to the 32 nm node. Transistor noise figure, high voltage tolerance, and quality factors of RF passives all show similar benefits from technology scaling.