Perfornance Enhancement for Strained HfO2 nMOSFET with Contact Etch Stop Layer (CESL) under Pulsed-IV Measurement

High-performance CESL strained nMOSFET with HfO
₂
gate dielectrics has been successfully demonstrated in this work. It is found that, the transconductance (g
_m
) and driving current (I
_on
) of the nMOSFETs increase 70% and 90%, respectively, of the increase of devices with a 300 nm capping nitride layer. A superior HfO
₂
/Si interface for CESL-devices is observed, demonstrated by an obvious interface state density reduction (6.56times10
¹¹
to 9.85times10
¹⁰
cm
^-2
). Further, a roughly 50% and 60% increase of g
_m
and I
_on
, respectively, can be achieved for the 300 nm SiN-capped HfO
₂
nMOSFET without considering charge trapping under pulsed-IV measurement.