The performance and reliability of PMOSFET's with ultrathin silicon nitride/oxide stacked gate dielectrics with nitrided Si-SiO2 interfaces prepared by remote plasma enhanced CVD and post-deposition rapid thermal annealing

Ultrathin (similar to 1.9 nm) nitride/oxide (N/O) dual layer gate dielectrics have been prepared by the remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RPECVD) of Si3N4 Onto oxides. Compared to PMOSFET's with heavily doped p(+)-poly-Si gates and oxide dielectrics, devices incorporating the RPECVD stacked nitrides display reduced tunneling current, effectively no boron penetration and improved interface characteristics. By preventing boron penetration into the bulk oxide and channel region, gate dielectric reliability and short channel effects are significantly improved. The hole mobility in devices with N/O dielectrics with equivalent oxide thickness between 1.8 nm and 3.0 nm is not significantly degraded. Because nitrogen is transported to the substrate/dielectric interface during post-deposition annealing, degradation of mobility during hot carrier stressing is significantly reduced for N/O devices. Compared with oxide, the tunneling current for N/O films with similar to 1.9 nm equivalent oxide thickness is lower by about an order of magnitude due to the larger physical thickness. Suppression of boron transport in nitride layers is explained by a percolation model in which boron transport is blocked in sufficiently thick nitrides, and is proportional to the oxide fraction in oxynitride alloys.