A new cobalt salicide technology for 0.15 μm CMOS using high-temperature sputtering and in-situ vacuum annealing

A new cobalt (Co) salicide technology using high-temperature sputtering and in-situ vacuum annealing process has been developed. This technology is a simple process without additional ion implantation and metal deposition to promote silicidation and to suppress oxidation of Co film. No line width dependence of sheet resistances was achieved down to for 0.15 μm gate electrode and 0.33 μm for diffusion layer. Sheet resistance of 11 Ω/sq. for both gate electrode and diffusion layer was obtained with 5 nm thick Co film (CoSi₂ 17.5 nm). By using this technology, 0.15 μm CMOS devices which have shallow junctions were successfully fabricated