Characterization of materials critical to high-speed silicon devices using secondary ion mass spectrometry

This work illustrates how SIMS can be used in materials and processes that are in use today's high-speed Si devices such as 2 nm thick SiON gate dielectric films, SiGe graded-base heterostructure bipolar transistors and ultra-low energy ion implantation. Examples will also be shown that illustrate the capability of SIMS to characterize new materials such as hafnium oxide/hafnium silicate/Si high-k gate dielectric films, or SiON gate dielectric films that are being pushed down in thickness to the tunneling limit (1 nm).