| With the emergence of sub-100 nm integrated circuitry (IC) technologies, one of the most formidable challenges of the semiconductor industry is the extendibility of conventional silicon dioxide (SiO2) based gate dielectrics. As the allowable dielectric thickness is scaled down with shrinking device feature sizes, increased leakage current and deteriorating reliability become a major problem. The alternative approach to resolve these challenges is the implementation of high dielectric constant ("kappa") insulator materials, which will be physically thicker than their corresponding SiO2 counterpart, allowing enhanced reliability while at the same time providing equivalent capacitance.; In this respect, a low-temperature metalorganic chemical vapor deposition process was developed and optimized, using a design of experiments approach, for the growth of ultrathin aluminum oxide (Al2O3) films as potential gate dielectric layers in emerging advanced semiconductor device applications. An aluminum beta-diketonate metalorganic precursor [aluminum(III) 2,4pentanedionate] and de-ionized water were used as, respectively, the metal and oxygen source reactants to grow these films in a temperature range from 250 to 450°C.; A detailed investigation is presented herein of the key physical and electrical properties of the Al2O3 films with respect to possible advanced gate dielectric applications and the feasibility of the use of these materials in future semiconductor technology is discussed. |
