Enhanced Strain Effects in 25-nm Gate-Length Thin-Body nMOSFETs With Silicon–Carbon Source/Drain and Tensile-Stress Liner

We report the demonstration of 25-nm gate-length L<sub>G</sub> strained nMOSFETs featuring the silicon-carbon source and drain (Si<sub>1-y</sub>C<sub>y</sub>S/D) regions and a thin-body thickness T <sub>body</sub> of ~18 nm. This is also the smallest reported planar nMOSFET with the Si<sub>1-y</sub>C<sub>y</sub>S/D stressors. Strain-induced mobility enhancement due to the Si<sub>1-y</sub>C<sub>y </sub>S/D leads to a significant drive-current I<sub>Dsat</sub> enhancement of 52% over the control transistor. Furthermore, the integration of tensile-stress SiN etch stop layer and Si<sub>1-y</sub>C <sub>y</sub>S/D extends the I<sub>Dsat</sub> enhancement to 67%. The performance enhancement was achieved for the devices with similar subthreshold swing and drain-induced barrier lowering. The Si<sub>1-y </sub>C<sub>y</sub>S/D technology and its combination with the existing strained-silicon techniques are promising for the future high-performance CMOS applications

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