A method of reducing the formation of silicon crystal defects due to extrinsic stresses in an integrated circuit chip. The source of such extrinsic stresses may be filling trenches with polycrystalline silicon or oxide, silicides, forming silicon nitride spacers or liners, or during oxide birds-beak formation, or at numerous other processing points. At an appropriate point, as each sensitive feature is defined or formed, carbon co-implanted into the silicon wafer at or near the feature.
A substrate under tension and/or compression improves performance of devices fabricated therein. Tension and/or compression can be imposed on a substrate through selection of appropriate STI fill material. The STI regions are formed in the substrate layer and impose forces on adjacent substrate areas. The substrate areas under compression or tension exhibit charge mobility characteristics different from those of a non-stressed substrate. By controllably varying these stresses within NFET and PFET devices formed on a substrate, improvements in IC performance are achieved.
The speed of CMOS circuits is improved by imposing a longitudinal tensile stress on the NFETs and a longitudinal compressive stress on the PFETs, by implanting in the sources and drains if the NFETs ions from the eighth column of the periodic table and hydrogen and implanting in the sources and drains of the PFETs ions from the fourth and sixth columns of the periodic table.
The speed of CMOS circuits is improved by imposing a longitudinal tensile stress on the NFETs and a longitudinal compressive stress on the PFETS, by implanting in the sources and drains of the NFETs ions from the eighth column of the periodic table and hydrogen and implanting in the sources and drains of the PFETs ions from the fourth and sixth columns of the periodic table.
The speed of CMOS circuits is improved by imposing a longitudinal tensile stress on the NFETs and longitudinal compressive stress on the PFETs, by implanting in the sources and drains of the NFETs ions from the eighth column of the periodic table and hydrogen and implanting in the sources and drains of the PFETs ions from the fourth and sixth columns of the periodic table.
A substrate under tension and/or compression improves performance of devices fabricated therein. Tension and/or compression can be imposed on a substrate through selection of appropriate gate sidewall spacer material disposed above a device channel region wherein the spacers are formed adjacent both the gate and the substrate and impose forces on adjacent substrate areas. Another embodiment comprises compressive stresses imposed in the plane of the channel using SOI sidewall spacers made of polysilicon that is expanded by oxidation. The substrate areas under compression or tension exhibit charge mobility characteristics different from those of a non-stressed substrate. By controllably varying these stresses within NFET and PFET devices formed on a substrate, improvements in IC performance have been demonstrated.
