Is strain engineering scalable in FinFET era?: Teaching the old dog some new tricks

Abstract

S/D epitaxy remains an effective source of strain engineering for both aggressively and conservatively scaled FinFETs. Not merging the S/D epitaxy between adjacent fins and recess etch into the fin before S/D epitaxy is recommended for maximizing the gain. With high active P concentration Si:C becomes an effective stressor for NMOS. Contact and gate metal fills provide new knobs for engineering strain in FinFET devices for the 22nm node and remain effective with conservative scaling of contact / gate CD only.