Silicide barrier engineering induced random telegraph noise in 1Xnm CMOS contacts

For the first time, new random telegraph noise behaviors are reported for silicide band gap engineering in advanced nano CMOS technology. Noise current pulses of up to 40% magnitude are observed when Schottky barrier is reduced to 0.2eV. The large contact resistance instability is attributed to barrier modification at Schottky contact interface by positive charge trapping. The prevalence and magnitude of the noise are dependent on the contact size, trap density, trap energy and the silicide Schottky barrier height. In this work, we report a fast monitor methodology to identify the silicide process induced traps in small silicide contacts for 1Xnm CMOS technology.