Heat stress exposing performance of deep-nano HK/MG nMOSFETs using DPN or PDA treatment

Decoupled plasma nitridation (DPN) or post-deposition annealing (PDA) process after high-k (HK) deposition to repair the bulk traps or the oxygen vacancy in gate dielectric is an impressive choice to raise up the device performance. Before heat stress, the electrical performance in drive current, channel mobility and subthreshold swing with both treatments was approximate, except the higher annealing atmosphere causing the thicker interfacial layer and reducing the overall related dielectric constant. After temperature stress, the electrical performance for all of the tested devices was slightly deteriorated. The degradation degree for electrical performance with PDA treatment group was the worst case due to NH₃ atmosphere forming Si-H bond on the channel surface, which was broken after stress and produced more interface state reflected with the increase of subthreshold swing.