Slight gate oxide thickness increase in PMOS devices with BF2 implanted polysilicon gate

The gate oxide thickness increase in PMOSFET devices with BF/sub 2/ implanted p/sup +/ polysilicon gate is observed even when rapid thermal annealing (RTA) is used as a dopant activation thermal process. The increase of oxide thickness is studied as a function of RTA temperature, RTA time, and initial oxide thickness in the 35 /spl Aring/ regime and is being reported for the first time. It was found that oxide thickness increase could be as significant as 7% in this regime. This phenomenon can be explained by the model of fluorine incorporation, which is found to he effectively suppressed with nitrogen implanted in the polysilicon.