Dan Mocuta

High performance 65 nm SOI technology with dual stress liner and low capacitance SRAM cell

A high performance 65 nm SOI CMOS technology is presented featuring 35 nm gate length, 1.05 nm gate oxide, performance enhancement from dual stress nitride liners (DSL), and 10 wiring levels with low-k dielectric offered in the first 8 levels. DSL enhancement is shown to scale well to 65 nm with larger enhancement seen than at 90 nm design rules. A high performance 0.65/spl mu/m/sup 2/ SRAM cell is also presented. SOI allows the SRAM cell to use Metal 1 instead of Metal 2 for bit-line wiring, which lowers the capacitance and improves access times. A functional dual-core microprocessor test chip containing 76Mb SRAM cache and key execution units has been fabricated.

Investigation of emerging middle-of-line poly gate-to-diffusion contact reliability issues

The minimum insulator spacing between the polysilicon control gate (PC) and the diffusion contacts (CA) in advanced VLSI circuits is aggressively shrinking due to continuous technology scaling. Meanwhile, rapid adoptions of new materials such as metal gate, epitaxial SiGe source /drain, stress liner, and copper contact together with new device configurations such as raised source/drain and FinFET may further exacerbate the PC-CA dielectric reliability. SRAM yield loss and functional stress failures of both SRAM and DRAM chips due to middle-of-line (MOL) PC-CA shorts and early breakdown have been observed during the course of technology development at 32nm. Therefore, the leakage and breakdown of middle-of-line (MOL) PC-to-CA dielectric is rapidly becoming an emerging reliability issue for a successful technology development. In this paper, a comprehensive investigation of MOL PC-to-CA reliability issues at 32nm technology node was conducted. A new qualification methodology was developed to assure PC-to-CA reliability at an acceptable level.

Test Structure and e-Beam Inspection Methodology for In-line Detection of (Non-visual) Missing Spacer Defects

A test structure specifically designed to allow in-line detection of missing spacer is introduced. Missing spacer is too small to be physically detected with any current inspection tool and therefore its existence must be flagged using voltage contrast for detection with an e-beam inspection system. How this structure and methodology were used to address this defect during the ramp of a recent technology is described. Key benefits include dramatically faster learning cycles and a much better ratio of signal to noise for split experiment evaluation. Missing spacer is one example of a growing class of non- visual defects which will greatly impact future semiconductor technologies. General principles for designing test structures to detect these defect types are discussed.

Voltage Contrast Inspection Methodology for Inline Detection of Missing Spacer and Other Nonvisual Defects

A test structure specifically designed to allow inline detection of missing spacer is introduced. Missing spacer is too small to be physically detected with any current inspection tool and therefore its existence must be flagged using voltage contrast for detection with an e-beam inspection system. The structure and methodology used to address this defect during the ramp of a recent technology is described. Key benefits include a dramatically faster learning cycle and much better signal-to-noise ratio for split experiment evaluation. Missing spacer is one example of a growing class of nonvisual defects which will greatly impact future semiconductor technologies. General principles for designing test structures to detect these defect types are discussed.

New electrical testing structures and analysis method for MOL and BEOL process diagnostics and TDDB reliability assessment

Both MOL PC-CA spacer dielectric and BEOL low-k dielectric breakdown data are commonly convoluted with multiple variables present in the data due to the involvement of many process steps such as lithography, etch, CMP, cleaning, and thin film deposition. With the continuing aggressive scaling of device dimensions and introduction of new device configurations, how to accurately analyze such complicated lateral dielectric breakdown data from MOL and BEOL TDDB in advanced VLSI circuits has become very challenging. In this paper, a new electrical method is developed to accurately characterize different variables in MOL and BEOL dielectric breakdown. This method provides a powerful way to do a fast deep dive process and reliability analysis for technology development and qualification without time consuming physical failure analysis.

Recent Progress and Challenges in Enabling Embedded Si:C Technology

Summary In summary, this work demonstrates that integrating ISPD eSi:C stressor in the thick-oxide long-channel nMOS source and drain is feasible. Key challenges lie in both high-quality ISPD eSi:C EPI development and modification of the conventional Si CMOS fabrication process to preserve eSi:C strain. Acknowledgements This work was performed by IBM/AMD/Freescale Alliance Teams at various IBM Research and Development Facilities. We wish to thank Applied Materials and ASM America for supplying high quality eSi:C EPI materials. References: [1] Kah-Wee Ang, King-Jien Chui, Vladimir Bliznetsov, Yihua Wang, Lai-Yin Wong, Chih-Hang Tung, N. Balasubramanian, Ming-Fu Li, Ganesh Samudra, and Yee-Chia Yeo, IEDM Tech. Dig., p503, 2005.[2] Yaocheng Liu, Oleg Gluschenkov, Jinghong Li, Anita Madan, Ahmet Ozcan, Byeong Kim, Tom Dyer, Ashima Chakravarti, Kevin Chan, Christian Lavoie, Irene Popova, Teresa Pinto, Nivo Rovedo, Zhijiong Luo, Rainer Loesing, William Henson, Ken Rim, Symp. on VLSI Tech., p.44, 2007. [3] P. Grudowski, V. Dhandapani, S. Zollner, D. Goedeke, K. Loiko, D. Tekleab, V. Adams, G. Spencer, H. Desjardins, L. Prabhu, R. Garcia, M. Foisy, D. Theodore, M. Bauer, D. Weeks, S. Thomas, A. Thean, B. White, SOI Conf. Proc., p.17, 2007. [4] Zhibin Ren, G. Pei, J. Li, F. Yang, R. Takalkar, K. Chan, G. Xia, Z. Zhu, A. Madan, T. Pinto, T. Adam, J. Miller, A. Dube, L. Black, J. W. Weijtmans, B. Yang, E. Harley, A. Chakravarti, T. Kanarsky, I. Lauer, D.-G. Park, D. Sadana, and G. Shahidi, Symp. on VLSI Tech., P. 172-173, 2008. [5] A. Madan, J. Li, Z. Ren, F. Yang, E. Harley, T. Adam, R. Loesing, Z. Zhu, T. Pinto, A. Chakravarti, A. Dube, R. Takalkar, J. W. Weijtmans, L. Black, D. Schepis, ECS SiGe and Realted Materials and Devices Symposium, Hawaii, Oct. 2008 (to be published).

High performance and highly stable ultra-thin oxynitride for CMOS applications

The device characteristics and manufacturability of ultra-thin oxynitride have been systemically studied in this paper for CMOS applications. We have found that the transistor with plasma oxynitride gate dielectrics gives better pFET performance in terms of drive current, mobility, threshold voltage and leakage current as compared to the one with thermal oxynitride. For nFET, the performance for transistors with plasma oxynitride and thermal oxynitride are almost equivalent. The manufacturability of plasma oxynitride is also thoroughly investigated. This paper proposes pre-conditioning process in plasma nitridation process which can significantly reduce the wafer-to-wafer variation for nitrogen and oxygen dose in the ultra-thin gate dielectrics.