Strained isolation oxide as novel overall stress element for Tri-Gate transistors of 22nm CMOS and beyond

This 3-D TCAD study demonstrates a new stress element by strained isolation oxide for Tri-Gate and similar FinFET structures. The simulation shows an uniform improvement of N- and PMOS drive current (10 %) by using a tensile strained isolation material between the fins processed on standard (100) bulk wafer with 110>; channel direction. Therefore it is a simple low-cost stress method for Tri-Gate and FinFET structures of 22nm technologies and beyond. The main stress direction is located along the channel width with a maximum near the pn-junctions. The stress effect can be improved further with reduced gate length which shows the compatibility of strained isolation oxide to future transistor generations.