Mainstream rapid thermal processing for source–drain engineering from first applications to latest results

Abstract

Rapid thermal processing (RTP) technology has been commercially available in the semiconductor industry for about 30 years. Already in 1957, e.g., a solar furnace with a parabolic Al reflector was designed. Despite this, it took several decades for RTP of semiconductors to penetrate the market. Over the last decade, RTP has become a mature application. As a replacement of standard furnaces, it provides outstanding ambient control and very short heating cycles with the highest ramp rates for promotion of desired processes such as implant activation, silicide formation or oxide growth while suppressing unintended processes like diffusion or surface degradation. In the field of ultra-shallow junction (USJ) formation, which is necessary to avoid short channel effects arising during continued scaling of CMOS devices, RTP is indispensable. With the introduction of CoSi 2 as the source–drain contact material and its transition to NiSi for future technology nodes, RTP delivers unique benefits in terms of ambient control and single wafer processing capability. In the current paper, we will present the development and potential of RTP throughout this era and show latest results in USJ annealing as well as source–drain contact formation down to the 90 and 65 nm technology node of the ITRS2003, respectively.