Enhanced Strain Effects in 25-nm Gate-Length Thin-Body nMOSFETs With Silicon–Carbon Source/Drain and Tensile-Stress Liner

We report the demonstration of 25-nm gate-length L
_G
strained nMOSFETs featuring the silicon-carbon source and drain (Si
_1-y
C
_y
S/D) regions and a thin-body thickness T
_body
of ~18 nm. This is also the smallest reported planar nMOSFET with the Si
_1-y
C
_y
S/D stressors. Strain-induced mobility enhancement due to the Si
_1-y
C
_y
S/D leads to a significant drive-current I
_Dsat
enhancement of 52% over the control transistor. Furthermore, the integration of tensile-stress SiN etch stop layer and Si
_1-y
C
_y
S/D extends the I
_Dsat
enhancement to 67%. The performance enhancement was achieved for the devices with similar subthreshold swing and drain-induced barrier lowering. The Si
_1-y
C
_y
S/D technology and its combination with the existing strained-silicon techniques are promising for the future high-performance CMOS applications