Hamid R. Soleimani

Simultaneous growth of different thickness gate oxides in silicon CMOS processing

A method is proposed that allows the growth of gate oxides of different thicknesses on a single wafer. The method does not require masking the gate oxide during oxidation with its inherent risk to the oxide quality, but rather relies on the implant of nitrogen into the silicon wafer before both oxide growth and preoxidation cleans. This implant is performed at the same step as the normal threshold voltage implants, avoiding possible contamination. Using nitrogen implant doses of the order of 3/spl times/10/sup 14/-3/spl times/10/sup 15/ cm/sup -2/, it is shown that it is possible to grow oxides of 30-70 /spl Aring/, for a process with a nominal oxide thickness of 90 /spl Aring/.<<ETX>>

Isolation process dependence of channel mobility in thin-film SOI devices

Degradation of NMOS and enhancement of PMOS I-V characteristics are found to be dependent on specific isolation processes in thin-film SOI devices. These variations are due to mobility decrease in NMOS and increase in PMOS, which can be attributed to the isolation-process-related compressive strain of the silicon film. Magnitudes of mobility variation as high as 40% are observed in the affected SOI devices.