25-nm Gate Length nMOSFET With Steep Channel Profiles Utilizing Carbon-Doped Silicon Layers (A P-Type Dopant Confinement Layer)

Abstract

Steep channel profiles of scaled transistors are a promising approach for advancing transistor generation in bulk complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS). In this paper, a carbon-doped Si (Si:C) layer under an undoped Si layer is proposed to form steep p-type channel profiles in n-channel MOS field-effect transistors (nMOSFETs) due to extremely low diffusivity of boron and indium in Si:C layers. This structure with low channel impurity improves mobility and suppresses threshold voltage (VTH) variation. Both items are essential for aggressively scaled MOSFETs with a gate length less than 25 nm. We demonstrated well-controlled, high-performance, and low VTH variability nMOSFETs with a Si:C-Si epitaxial channel structure.