New contact process using soft etch for stable ohmic characteristics and its application to 0.1 micron CMOS devices

A new contact process using Inductive Coupled Plasma (ICP) soft etch with Ar as an in-situ pretreatment before metallization was developed. The ICP soft etch can control metal and silicon interface conditions to form a stable ohmic contact. Evaluating ohmic characteristics, junction leakage, reliability of thin gate oxide and driving ability characteristics, this study shows that the ICP soft etch process is an effective pre-metallization treatment for contact formation in CMOS process. The mechanism to form the stable ohmic contact was theoretically analyzed by Monte-Carlo topological simulation.<
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