Novel Scanning Nanosecond Laser Anneal with Variable Dwell and Real-time Process Control for Advanced Logic and Memory Applications

As CMOS device scaling continues beyond 5/3 nm nodes, and new device architectures (3D-devices) emerge, the thermal budget requirements have become more stringent. Thermal budget trends, favoring high temperatures at very short time durations to enable high dopant activation and minimize dopant diffusion, have only been accelerating. It is well known that millisecond (msec) Laser Spike Anneal (LSA) improves dopant activation with minimal diffusion. Nanosecond laser anneal in the melt regime could enable further progress through dopant super-activation above the solid solubility limit while practically eliminating dopant diffusion in the solid phase.