TaN metal gate MOSFETs with aggressively scaled HfO2 gate dielectrics

We have developed a robust and simple approach for integrating new materials in aggressively scaled MOSFETs. This incorporates the most important aspects of a commercially viable process and has been used to integrate both poly-Si and TaN metal gates together with HfO 2 gate dielectrics in an etched gate process. This has yielded sub-lOOnm gate length nMOSFETs with sub-1.2nm effective oxide thickness that appears to be stable even for junction activation anneals up to 1000 °C/ls. These results are compared with equivalent poly-Si HfO 2 nMOSFETs and it is shown that the replacement of poly-Si with metal not only eliminates the gate depletion effect but also improves the channel mobility, yields thinner EOTs, and appears to stabilize the dielectric-electrode interface.