Silicidation in Ni-Si System
Silicide formation induced by thermal annealing in Ni/Si thin film system has been investigated using glancing incidence X-ray diffraction. Silicide formation takes place at 600degC with Ni2Si, NiSi and NiSi2 phases co-existing with Ni. Complete conversion of intermediate silicide phases to the final NiSi2 phase takes place at 900degC. A comparison of the experimental results in terms of annealing temperature, Ni thickness, and dopant impurities with Ni-Si phases is presented. Nickel silicide (NiSi) is emerging to be the choice material for contact application in semiconductor device processing for sub_65 nm technology node and beyond. The focus of present work is to facilitate better understanding of the influence of thermal budget on nickel silicide solid-state reaction. Requirements for low temperature anneal and improving within wafer sheet resistance uniformity pose challenges for conventional lamp-based rapid thermal processing (RTP) due to lamp response effects on temperature controllability. Evolution of the nickel-rich silicide phase as a function of temperature is recorded using X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. It is postulated that lowering the Ni2Si/Si interface energy favors the delay of the agglomeration of the NiSi.
Integrated NiSi defect reductions in 45nm node and beyond
Nickel silicide has been popular used for source/drain (S/D) contact materials in 45nm node and beyond in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor device because of its low silicon consumption and low sheet resistance loading among variant line widths, but the drawback is poor thermal stability [1–2] which is easy to worsen pre-layer damage and induce leakage defects like piping, agglomeration. So some approaches like impurity engineering with fluorine and Pt additive for improving NiSi thermal stability, and annealing time and temperature optimization for gain and roughness improvement. Additionally, some thermal techniques for end-of-line (EOR) defect recovery were addressed to reduce leakage defects. This study successfully demonstrates three orders defect reduction by integrating them.
Thermodynamics on the Carbochlorination of Titanium-bearing Ores
The equilibrium compositions of the multi-component, multi-phase and multi-reaction system of carbochlorination of titanium-bearing ores are calculated with HSC, a computational chemistry software. The thermodynamic equilibrium calculation of the reaction system shows that a complete conversion of titanium-bearing ores is feasible at a temperature near 200oC. At temperatures ranging from 800 to 1600oC, the products of the reaction system are all in gaseous phase. Thermodynamic analysis accords with the industrial practice. The simulated results provide reasonable scientific basis for improving suitable technological conditions of the carbochlorination reduction.