Improved Contact Resistivity and Transconductance for Sub-10 nm FinFET Technology by Laser-Induced Contact Silicide

Ultra-violet laser thermal annealing (LTA) is proposed to form contact TiSi
_x
for sub-10 nm FinFETs. Compared to conventional rapid thermal annealing (RTA), LTA process leads to reduced total series resistance (R
_Total
) by 10.1∼16.1% and 13.0∼15.3% which corresponds to enhanced transconductance (g
_m
) by 7.7∼9.8% and 5.9∼9.0% for N-/P-FinFETs respectively due to improved contact resistivity (ρ
_c
) by 69% arising from more orderly local Ti-Si bonds and smoother TiSi
_x
/Si interface. There is also no concern of LTA process in terms of comparable off-state/junction leakage and reliability by hot carrier stress. In addition, LTA is VLSI-compatible without adding any process complexity. These promising properties enable LTA to further unleash the performance of FinFETs.