Novel Exploration of Flat-Band Voltage Manipulation by Nitrogen Plasma Treatment for Advanced High-k/Metal-Gate CMOS Technology

This work presents a novel exploration of flat-band voltage (VFB) manipulation by nitrogen plasma treatment (NPT) in the high-k/metal-gate (HKMG) Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Capacitor (MOSCAP) for the scaling-down in further CMOS fabrication technology. Significant VFB shifts were achieved from−220 mV to +60 mV and from +130 mV to+420 mV for P- and N-MOSCAPs, respectively, with different RF powers settings. One unique modulation mechanism can successfully address the difference of P- and N-device variation by the NPT process, and thus be used to adjust the threshold voltage of the MOSCAPs in P-/N-logic devices scaled beyond 7-nm technology node.