Publications

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Ultra-thin oxynitride films were grown on Si by direct rapid thermal processing (RTP) oxynitridation in NO/O{sub 2} ambients with NO concentrations from 5% to 50%. During oxynitridation, nitrogen accumulated at the Si/dielectric interface and the average concentration of in N through the resulting films ranged from 0.3 to 3.0 atomic percent. The average concentration of N in the films increased with increasing NO in the ambient gas, but decreased with longer RTP times. The maximum N concentration remained relatively constant for all RTP times and a given NO/O{sub 2} ambient. Re-oxidation following oxynitridation altered L the N profile and improved the electrical characteristics, with an optimal NO/O{sub 2} mixture in the range of 10% to 25% NO. Re-oxidation by RTP improves the electrical characteristics with respect to the films that were not re-oxidized and produces only slight changes in the N distribution or maximum concentration. The electrical results also indicate that oxynitride films are superior to comparably grown oxide films.

Defects in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) buried oxides are normally considered deleterious to device operation. Similarly, exposing devices to hydrogen at elevated temperatures often can lead to radiation-induced charge buildup. However, in this work, we take advantage of as-processed defects in SOI buried oxides and moderate temperature hydrogen anneals to generate mobile protons in the buried oxide to form the basis of a ''protonic'' nonvolatile memory. Capacitors and fully-processed transistors were fabricated. SOI buried oxides are exposed to hydrogen at moderate temperatures using a variety of anneal conditions to optimize the density of mobile protons. A fast ramp cool down anneal was found to yield the maximum number of mobile protons. Unfortunately, we were unable to obtain uniform mobile proton concentrations across a wafer. Capacitors were irradiated to investigate the potential use of protonic memories for space and weapon applications. Irradiating under a negative top-gate bias or with no applied bias was observed to cause little degradation in the number of mobile protons. However, irradiating to a total dose of 100 krad(SiO{sub 2}) under a positive top-gate bias caused approximately a 100% reduction in the number of mobile protons. Cycling capacitors up to 10{sup 4} cycles had little effect on the switching characteristics. No change in the retention characteristics were observed for times up to 3 x 10{sup 4} s for capacitors stored unbiased at 200 C. These results show the proof-of-concept for a protonic nonvolatile memory. Two memory architectures are proposed for a protonic non-destructive, nonvolatile memory.

The C49 to C54 TiSi{sub 2} transformation temperature is shown to be reduced by increasing the ramp rate during rapid thermal processing and this effect is more pronounced for thinner initial Ti and Ti(Ta) films. Experiments were performed on blanket wafers and on wafers that had patterned polycrystalline Si lines with Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} sidewall spacers. Changing the ramp rate caused no change in the transformation temperature for 60 nm blanket Ti films. For blanket Ti films of 25 or 40 nm, however, increasing the ramp rate from 7 to 180 C/s decreased the transformation temperature by 15 C. Studies of patterned lines indicate that sheet resistance of narrow lines is reduced by increased ramp rates for both Ti and Ti(Ta) films, especially as the linewidths decrease below 0.4 {micro}m. This improvement is particularly pronounced for the thinnest Ti(Ta) films, which exhibited almost no linewidth effect after being annealed with a ramp rate of 75 C/s.

The specific contact resistivity of Cu with ({alpha} + {beta})-Ta, TiN, {alpha}-W, and amorphous-Ta{sub 36}Si{sub 14}N{sub 50} barrier films is measured using a novel four-point-probe approach. Geometrically, the test structures consist of colinear sets of W-plugs to act as current and voltage probes that contact the bottom of a planar Cu/barrier/Cu stack. Underlying Al interconnects link the plugs to the current source and voltmeter. The center-to-center distance of the probes ranges from 3 to 200 {micro}m. Using a relation developed by Vu et al., a contact resistivity of roughly 7 {times} 10{sup {minus}9} {Omega} cm{sup 2} is obtained for all tested barrier/Cu combinations. By reflective-mode small-angle X-ray scattering, the similarity in contact resistivity among the barrier films may be related to interfacial impurities absorbed from the deposition process.

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