Estimation of step-by-step induced stress in a sequential process integration of nano-scale SOS MOSFETs with high-<i>k</i>gate dielectrics

Abstract

The current work proposes a novel technique to incorporate process-induced uni-axial stress for significant mobility boosting in high-performance metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect-transistors. It has been shown that two existing standard techniques, namely, silicon-on-sapphire and high-k gate dielectrics can be combined to develop such technology. Sapphire has very high elastic constant and thermal expansion coefficient, thereby capable of inducing a significant amount of stress which is observed to be biaxial in nature. However, with the incorporation of different materials during process integration, such biaxial stress is gradually changed to uni-axial nature. The high-k gate dielectric plays the key role in converting the biaxial stress to uni-axial. Several high-k gate dielectrics have been studied and titanium oxide (TiO2) is observed to maximize the induced stress and also effective to convert it to uni-axial. A final average longitudinal channel stress of 0.73 GPa has been obtained.