Investigation Of The NiSi Film Process For The 45Nm CMOS Technology

In the field of the current semiconductor manufacturing, the 45nm technology has become the key product proess of the semiconductor industry. Further, as one of the most important front-end of line process, the NiSi process for the 45 nm technology node is playing a key role in determining the right functions of semiconductor chips. Therefore, the investigations of the 45nm NiSi process are very important to improve the stability of the devices, as well as the yield of the final products.For the 4 major sub-steps in 45nm/40nm NiSi process, we designed different split to study each step, and get the best solution based on data analysis.(1) Comparison new type of SiCoNi pre-clean and traditional BHF pre-clean. From the result, compared with BHF, SiCoNi pre-clean can reduce Salicide resistance more effectively, and get lower leakage current;(2) Studied metal doping(NiPt) and NiPt alloy thickness impact to device performance. From the result, NiPt with 10% Pt is the best condition; thicker NiPt alloy can get lower Salicide resistance and lower contact resistance, however, there will be severe contact to PC short issue if the NiPt alloy is too thick;(3) Studied RTA temperature impact to device performance. From the result, the 1st RTA has great impact to AA and PC open, contact to PC short, Salicide resistance and device leakage current. Besides, RTA1 time can also impact contact to PC short yield. While we don’t see any obvious impact from RTA2 process;(4) Evaluate to add standard clean step after RTA2, the experiment results show that adding 2 steps of standard clean(SC1 and SC2) can effectively reduce wafer surface defect and improve short and open yield.