Laser-annealed junctions with advanced CMOS gate stacks for 32nm Node: Perspectives on device performance and manufacturability

In this paper, we report on the integration of laser-annealed junctions into a state-of-the-art high-k/metal gate process flow. After implant optimization, we achieve excellent Lg scaling of 15/30 nm over a spike reference, for nMOS and pMOS respectively, without any performance loss. This enables to fabricate transistors with Lg_min meeting the 32 nm node requirement. In addition, we highlight the implication of the metal gate integration flow (ldquogate-firstrdquo vs. ldquogate-lastrdquo) on the junctions design. Also, we demonstrate that a millisecond anneal only (MSA-only) process can fulfill even the stringent junction leakage requirement for low power applications. Finally, based on a combination of physical and electrical characterization, we show for the very first time that micro-uniformities specific to this diffusion-less process have a negligible electrical impact in nominal devices.