P-type Gate Electrode Formation Using B18H22 Ion Implantation

Vincent C. Venezia, M. S. Ameen, and M. A. Harris Axcelis Technologies, 108 Cherry Hill Drive, Beverly, MA, 01915 We have investigated the use of octadecaborane (B18H22) cluster ion implantation to form highly active p-type gate electrodes in a 90 nm CMOS process. As device dimensions scale, the influence of poly-depletion and short channel effect control on device performance continues to become more significant. Increasing gate electrode doping via high dose ion implantation is a standard method for reducing poly-depletion. Poly-silicon gate doping with the molecular ion B18H22 offers throughput advantages over monatomic B ion implantation. For instance each molecular ion introduces 18-B atoms, thereby reducing the implant dose. In addition, each B constituent of the molecular ion is implanted with 1/20th the ion energy, making it possible to achieve low energy dopant distribution while taking advantage of higher beam energy currents. In this work, B18H22 implantation conditions (energy, dose) were matched to those of the standard B+ process of record (POR) used for gate electrode doping. We show that the poly-depletion, threshold voltage, and yield of devices implanted with B18H22 are comparable to those implanted with the POR. We combine this device results with materials data to demonstrate that the high dose implants necessary to form p-type gate electrodes with minimum poly-depletion can be achieved with B18H22 ion implants without impacting the device performance.