Channel strain analysis in high-performance damascene-gate p-metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors using high-spatial resolution Raman spectroscopy

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Channel strain analysis in damascene-gate p-metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (pMOSFETs) with a compressive stress liner and embedded SiGe after the dummy gate removal was studied using micro-Raman spectroscopy with a UV laser (λ=363.8 nm) and a quasiline excitation source. Using a quasiline excitation source, we obtained spatial and energy information simultaneously with a high spatial resolution in the one-dimensional strain profile. For Lgate>210 nm samples, we performed laser exposure for 10 min to measure the channel strain. However, the channel strain for Lgate<210 nm samples was impossible to evaluate due to the limitation of the spatial resolution. Therefore, we increased the laser exposure time to 40 min for Lgate<210 nm samples. Super invar metal with an extremely low thermal coefficient was installed in the monochromator, which achieved a very long measurement. Finally, we found an extremely large stress of −2.4 GPa in the channel of Lgate=30 nm samples. These results demonstrated good agreement with a stress simulation. We found that the large stress in the channel significantly enhanced the drivability in the damascene-gate pMOSFET.