Impact of In situ Postnitridation Annealing for Successful Fabrication of HfSiON Thin Film

概要

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For the successful integration of high-$k$ gate dielectrics into advanced complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) processes, it is important to determine the stability of high-$k$ materials during exposure to an ambient atmosphere. In this work, we investigated the effect of exposure to air on the nitrogen concentration in HfSiON films formed by sequentially combining HfSiO chemical vapor deposition (CVD), plasma nitridation, and postnitridation annealing (PNA). We observed that exposure to air after the nitridation step reduces the nitrogen concentration due to a reaction between the HfSiON surface and the constituents of atmospheric air. We also found that exposure to air for even a short time between nitridation and PNA leads to a significant loss of nitrogen concentration, indicating that in situ PNA is critical for achieving precise control of the nitridation. These results confirmed the importance of using clustered multichamber platforms for successful high-$k$ fabrication.
Published by the Japan Society of Applied Physics through the Institute of Pure and Applied Physicsの論文
2007-05-30