Abstract:
A method for forming and the structure of a strained lateral channel of a field effect transistor, a field effect transistor and CMOS circuitry is described incorporating a drain, body and source region on a single crystal semiconductor substrate wherein a hetero-junction is formed between the source and body of the transistor, wherein the source region and channel are independently lattice strained with respect the body region. The invention reduces the problem of leakage current from the source region via the hetero-junction and lattice strain while independently permitting lattice strain in the channel region for increased mobility via choice of the semiconductor materials and alloy composition.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]    This application is cross referenced to U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ (Attorney docket YOR920010723US1) by Q. Ouyang and Jack  0 . Chu, the inventors herein, filed herewith, entitled “Low Leakage Heterojunction Vertical Transistors and High Performance Devices Thereof” which is directed to a vertical p-channel MOSFET which is incorporated herein by reference and assigned to the assignee herein.  
         [0002]    This application is further cross referenced to U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ (Attorney docket YOR920030140US1) by Q. Ouyang and Jack O. Chu, the inventors herein, filed herewith, entitled “Ultra Scalable High Speed Heterojunction Vertical n-channel MISFETs and Methods Thereof” which is directed to vertical n-channel MISFETs which is incorporated herein by reference and assigned to the assignee herein. 
     
    
     
       FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0003]    This invention relates to semiconductor transistors and, more particularly, to a metal insulator semiconductor field effect transistor (MISFET) consisting of a conducting channel which has no hetero-barrier in the current flow direction and a heterojunction between the source/drain and body (bulk) of the transistor.  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0004]    Silicon MOSFET scaling has become a major challenge in the semiconductor industry. Traditional techniques start to fail in reducing certain undesirable physical effects as device dimensions shrink down to the nanometer regime. For example, anti-punchthrough (APT) or halo implantation is used to reduce the short-channel effects (SCE). However, the abrupt doping profiles are difficult to achieve due to temperature enhanced diffusion, and these highly doped channels or pocket implant regions increase junction capacitance and band-to-band tunneling. It has been shown by S. Thompson, et al., in “MOS scaling: transistor challenges for the 21st century,” Intel Technology Journal, Q3, 1998, that channel engineering can only decrease the circuit gate delay by ˜10% for a given technology, and it cannot provide channel length scaling for generation after generation that gate oxide and source/drain (S/D) junction depth scaling has provided.  
           [0005]    With bandgap engineering, an important degree of freedom can be provided in the device design. The growth of high-quality tensile strained Si/SiGe and compressively strained SiGe/Si heterostructures by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), various types of chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and/or ion implantation allows incorporation of bandgap engineering concepts into a mature silicon technology.  
           [0006]    Bandgap engineering has been utilized to realize various types of heterojunction field effect transistors (HFETs). The most widely studied is the modulation doped field effect transistors (MODFETs), in which a quantum well is used to confine the carriers in a lightly doped semiconductor (See K. Ismail, “Si/SiGe High-Speed Field-Effect Transistors”, IEDM, Tech. Dig., p. 509-512, 1995). Higher carrier mobility can be achieved due to reduced impurity scattering, reduced surface roughness scattering in the buried channel, and strained-induced mobility enhancement, if any, depending on the hetero material system employed. Derived from the same concept, various types of heterostructure CMOS devices have also been proposed and studied (See M. A. Armstong, et al., “Design of Si/SiGe Heterojunction Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Transistors”, IEDM Tech. Dig., p. 761-764, 1995; S. Imai et al., “Si—SiGe Semiconductor Device and Method of Fabricating the Same”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,847,419; and M. Kubo, et al., “Method of Forming HCMOS Devices with a Silicon-Germanium-Carbon compound Semiconductor Layer”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,190,975, Feb. 20, 2001.) The advantage of these devices is the higher carrier mobility and hence high drive current and high speed. However, two prominent problems remain in these planar devices: device scaling and control of short-channel effects.  
           [0007]    As for short-channel effects, other than ultra-steep retrograded channel profiles and ultra-shallow source/drain junctions, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) has been used to control short-channel effects. However, SOI alone cannot remove the short-channel effects completely, and moreover, an inherent problem with SOI is the floating body effect. Another way to reduce the short-channel effect is to have a built-in energy barrier at the source/body junction, and in particular a barrier where the barrier height does not depend on the applied bias. The band offset provided by a heterojunction is very suitable in this case. A heterojunction MOSFET (HJMOSFET) was been proposed and studied by S. Hareland, et al., in “New structural approach for reducing punchthrough current in deep submicrometer MOSFETs and extending MOSFET scaling,” IEEE Electronics Letters, vol. 29, no. 21, pp. 1894-1896, October 1993, and by X. D. Chen, et al., in “Vertical P-MOSFETS with heterojunction between source/drain and channel,” Device Research Conference, Denver, June 2000.  
           [0008]    Recently, a lateral, high mobility, p-channel heterojunction transistor (HMHJT) has been proposed by Q. Ouyang, et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,319,799. A detailed simulation study has been performed by Q. Ouyang, et al., in “A Novel Si/SiGe Heterojunction pMOSFET with Reduced Short-Channel Effects and Enhanced Drive Current,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 47 (10), 2000. In order to achieve complementary MISFETs using such a pMISFET, a comparable high performance nMISFET is needed. In the present invention, a lateral, high performance, heterojunction nMISFET is proposed and two embodiments are illustrated. Two embodiments for the complementary MOSFET are presented. The methods thereof are also described.  
           [0009]    U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,088 describes a “High Electron Mobility Transistor”. This device has a pair of semiconductor layers for source/drain electrodes consisting of a poly SiGe layer and a poly Si layer so as to form a partially projected “overhanging-shape” over the active area. In this case, the source/drain and the gate are self-aligned. However, it is a planar structure and still suffers from the short-channel effects.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0010]    The objective of this invention is to provide a device structure that has superb performance and scalability. By using 2-dimensional bandgap engineering, the tradeoffs in the conventional Si technology can be avoided, and the drive current and leakage current can be optimized independently. Consequently, very high drive current and excellent turn-off characteristics can be achieved simultaneously. Moreover, the suppression of short-channel effects in such a device further allows continuous and more aggressive scaling of the MOSFET technology.  
           [0011]    This invention describes a lateral n-channel and complementary MISFET structure having these advantages with various embodiments. Another aspect of this invention is the process integration scheme for such devices. The devices described in this invention have at least a hetero-barrier between the source and the body of the transistor, however, there is no hetero-barrier in the channel along the current flow direction. Drain induced barrier lowering is substantially reduced due to the hetero-barrier at the source junction, hence, the substhreshold swing and off-state leakage are reduced. Meanwhile, the drive current is not limited by quantum mechanical tunneling since there is no hetero-barrier in the channel. Therefore, with these devices, very high on/off ratio can be achieved. Such devices are superb in high speed, low leakage and low power applications, such as DRAM, laptop computers, and wireless communications.  
           [0012]    Any hetero-material system with the proper band offset may be used to realize the device concept such as silicon-based or Ill-V material systems. Since silicon technology is the most mature, silicon based materials are the most economically feasible and attractive. There are two types of Si-based heterostructures which have the suitable band offset for electrons in nMISFETs. One is tensile strained Si or SiGe on relaxed SiGe buffer layers, and the other is tensile strained Si 1-x-y Ge x C y  on Si. On the other hand, in order to form complementary MISFETs, compressively strained SiGe or SiGeC on silicon can be used for pMISFETs, because it has the suitable band offset for holes. With each material system, the channel could be a surface channel or a buried quantum well channel, and the device can be built on various substrates such as bulk silicon, silicon-on-insulator, SiGe-on-insulator or silicon-on-sapphire substrate.  
           [0013]    In the present invention, three embodiments for a lateral n-channel transistor are illustrated. Then two embodiments for a lateral CMOS are further described. The fabrication methods are also described. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING  
       [0014]    These and other features, objects, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention when read in conjunction with the drawing in which:  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 1 is an energy band diagram of compressively strained SiGe or SiGe(C) on cubic Si.  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 2 is an energy band diagram of tensile strained SiC on cubic Si.  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 3 is an energy band diagram of tensile strained Si on relaxed SiGe buffer.  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 4 is a cross sectional schematic of a lateral tensile strained Si surface channel nMOSFET according to the first embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 5 is a cross sectional schematic of a lateral surface channel nMOSFET having tensile strained SiC in the source/drain regions according to a second embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 6 is a cross sectional schematic of a lateral CMOS with tensile strained SiC source/drain for the nMOSFET and compressively strained Si 1-x-y Ge x C y  source/drain for pMOSFET.  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 7 is a cross sectional schematic of a lateral CMOS with tensile strained Si 1-y C y  source/drain for the nMOSFET and compressively strained Si 1-x-y Ge x C y  source/drain for pMOSFET. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0022]    The lattice spacing of carbon, silicon and germanium are 3.567 Å, 5.431 Å and 5.646 Å, respectively. Biaxial tensile strain exists in pseudomorphic SiC on relaxed Si, or in pseudomorphic Si on relaxed SiGe or Ge substrate. Biaxial tensile strain means a larger lattice spacing in the growth plane (surface) and a smaller lattice spacing in the growth direction (normal to the surface) in the pseudomorphic material. On the other hand, compressive biaxial strain exists in pseudomorphic SiGe on relaxed Si, in pseudomorphic SiGeC on relaxed Si, or in pseudomorphic Ge on relaxed SiGe. Compressive biaxial strain means a smaller lattice spacing in the growth plane (surface) and a larger lattice spacing in the growth direction (normal to the surface) in the pseudomorphic material. Adding a small amount of carbon (&lt;1%) into compressively strained SiGe on relaxed Si can compensate and reduce the strain in SiGe. Strain changes the band structure of the strained material. Therefore, strain may affect the energy band offset, effective mass and density of states. Referring to the drawing, FIG. 1 shows the conduction band and valence band of compressively strained SiGe(C) on silicon by curves  2  and  3 , respectively. Holes are confined in the compressively strained SiGe(C) which has high hole mobility, and this material system is suitable for pMOSFETs.  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 2 shows the conduction band and valence band of tensile strained Si 1-y C y  on relaxed Si buffer layer by curves  4  and  5 , respectively. In this case, electrons are confined in the tensile strained Si 1-y C y  which potentially has high electron mobility, and this material system is suitable for nMOSFETs. Furthermore, FIG. 3 shows the conduction band and valence band of tensile strained silicon on relaxed silicon germanium by curves  6  and  7 , respectively. Electrons are confined in the tensile strained silicon which has high electron mobility, and this material system is suitable for nMOSFETs. With the three material systems, the channel could either be a surface channel or a buried quantum well channel. In FIGS. 1-3, the ordinate represents energy and the abscissa represents depth.  
         [0024]    The cross sectional schematic for the first embodiment of a SiGe based lateral nMOSFET  78  is shown in FIG. 4. The device has the following structural characteristics:  
         [0025]    1) The drain is n + -type tensile strained silicon  82 ;  
         [0026]    2) The body is p-type relaxed SiGe  81 , and the doping level is adjusted to achieve desirable the threshold voltage;  
         [0027]    3) The source is n + -type tensile strained silicon  83 ;  
         [0028]    4) The channel is tensile strained Si  84 , and there is no hetero-barrier along the current flow direction shown by arrow  93 . The channel forms a heterojunction with the body  81  at the interface  805  which functions to provide a band offset as shown in FIG. 3 to confine electrons in the Si channel  84 . The channel is typically autodoped by the layer below. Thus the channel region over the body  81  is autodped p-type, while the channel region over the source  83  and drain  82  are doped n-type. There are other ways to provide the desired doping in the channel layer and source/drain.  
         [0029]    5) A strained Si/SiGe heterojunction is formed between the source and the body at the interface  800 , and preferably, aligned with the source/body metallurgical p/n junction. The heterojunction functions to block electrons from entering body  81 , hence can reduce the off-state current by orders of magnitude. Futhermore, the higher the strain in the heterojunction, the higher the energy barrier becomes and in which case the leakage current from source to body then to drain can even be further reduced when the device is turned off.  
         [0030]    6) A strained Si/SiGe heterojunction is formed between the drain and the body at the interface  810 , and preferably, aligned with the drain/body metallurgical p/n junction;  
         [0031]    7) The gate is a conducting layer  86  overlapping the entire strained silicon channel  84  and part of the source  83  and drain  82  with an insulator  85  in between;  
         [0032]    8) The source, gate and drain electrodes  90 ,  91 ,  92  are coupled to the source  83 , gate  86 , and drain  82 , respectively;  
         [0033]    9) The device isolation is provided by an insulator layer  89 ;  
         [0034]    10) Buffer layer  94  provides a relaxed SiGe lattice template for layer  81 . Layer  80  may be bulk silicon, SOI substrate, bulk Ge, Ge-on-insulator, SiGe-on-insulator or silicon-on-sapphire.  
         [0035]    11) Insulator layer  87  protects the gate stack  85  and  86 .  
         [0036]    12) Insulator layer  88  may be combined with layer  89  as one.  
         [0037]    Besides using a relaxed SiGe as the virtual substrate to generate a tensile strained Si layer, tensile strained SiC on silicon can also be used for nMOSFET. The cross sectional schematic for the second embodiment of such a silicon-based lateral nMOSFET  112  is shown in FIG. 5. The device has the following structural characteristics:  
         [0038]    1) The drain is n + -type tensile strained SiC  32 ;  
         [0039]    2) The body is p-type silicon  31 , and the doping level is adjusted to achieve the desirable threshold voltage;  
         [0040]    3) The source is n + -type tensile strained SiC  33 ;  
         [0041]    4) The channel is silicon or tensile strained SiC  34 , and there is no hetero-barrier along the current flow direction;  
         [0042]    5) A strained SiC/Si heterojunction is formed between the source and the body at the interface  820 , and is preferably, aligned with the source/body metallurgical p/n junction;  
         [0043]    6) A strained SiC/Si heterojunction is formed between the drain and the body at the interface  830 , and is preferably, aligned with the drain/body metallurgical p/n junction;  
         [0044]    7) The gate is a conducting layer  36  overlapping the entire channel  34  and part of the source  33  and drain  32  with an insulator  35  in between;  
         [0045]    8) The source, gate and drain electrodes  40 ,  41  and  42  are coupled to the source  33 , gate  36 , and drain  32 , respectively;  
         [0046]    9) The device isolation is an insulator layer  39 .  
         [0047]    10) Layer  30  may be bulk silicon or a SOI substrate.  
         [0048]    11) Insulator layer  37  protects the gate stack  35  and  36 .  
         [0049]    12) Insulator layer  38  may be combined with layer  39  as one.  
         [0050]    [0050]FIG. 6 shows an embodiment of a lateral CMOS inverter  282 , which is a combination of a lateral symmetric nMOSFET  112  and a lateral symmetric pMOSFET  280 . The device isolation is provided by insulator regions  39  and  50 . The nMOSFET  112  has a tensile strained SiC source/drain  32 ,  33  and a silicon or strained SiC channel  34 ; whereas the pMOSFET  280  has a compressively strained SiGeC source/drain  132 ,  133  and a silicon or strained SiGeC channel  134 . The gate insulator  35  and  135  can be oxide, oxynitride, other high-permittivity dielectrics, or a combination thereof. The gate electrode  36 ,  136  can be the same kind of metal with a mid-gap work function, or a n-type poly silicon or poly SiGe for nMOSFET and p-type poly silicon or poly SiGe for pMOSFET, respectively.  
         [0051]    [0051]FIG. 7 shows a second embodiment for a lateral CMOS inverter  382 , which is the same as FIG. 6 except for the nMOSFET  312 . In this case, the nMOSFET  312  utilizes a tensile strained silicon source/drain  532 ,  533  and a tensile strained silicon channel  534 . The gate insulator  35  and  135  can be oxide, oxynitride, other high-permittivity dielectrics, or a combination thereof. The gate electrode  36 ,  136  can be the same kind of metal with a mid-gap work function, or a n-type poly silicon or poly SiGe for nMOS and p-type poly silicon or poly SiGe for pMOS, respectively.  
         [0052]    According to the preferred embodiment, this invention further comprises the scheme for process integration for a lateral heterojunction nMISFET:  
         [0053]    a) Define a active region and form a well within on silicon, relaxed SiGe bulk, SOI, SGOI or GOI substrate;  
         [0054]    b) Further define and form a gate region with a stack of dielectrics as a mask preferrably for selective processing;  
         [0055]    c) Etch openings to form the recessed source and drain, which are self-aligned to said gate stack;  
         [0056]    d) Preferably, do a selective epitaxial growth to form the tensile or compressively strained source/drain regions with or without in-situ doping;  
         [0057]    e) Removal of said gate stack and planazation if necessary;  
         [0058]    f) Epitaxial growth of the channel layer, plus the cap layer if desired for a buried channel device in an uniform manner over the well region and the source/drain regions;  
         [0059]    g) Growth or deposition of a gate insulator layer, which may be an oxide, oxinitride, other high-permittivity dielectrics, singly or a combination thereof;  
         [0060]    h) Growth or deposition of a gate electrode layer; which may be poly silicon, poly SiGe or metal;  
         [0061]    i) Gate patterning and formation;  
         [0062]    j) Ion implanting and annealing if the source, drain are not in-situ doped;  
         [0063]    k) Deposition of field oxide;  
         [0064]    l) Opening for contacts;  
         [0065]    m) Source/drain and gate silicidation;  
         [0066]    n) Metallization and metal sintering.  
         [0067]    It should be noted that in the drawing like elements or components are referred to by like and corresponding reference numerals.  
         [0068]    While there has been described and illustrated a lateral semiconductor device containing a high mobility channel and a heterojunction which preferably coincides with the junction of source and/or drain, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications and variations are possible without deviating from the broad scope of the invention which shall be limited solely by the scope of the claims appended hereto.