Thermal stability of nickel silicide films in submicron p-type polysilicon lines

In this work, we found that very low resistivity NiSi can be thermally stable and is independent of linewidth for deep submicron p-type poly-Si lines up to 700-750/spl deg/C for 0.5 and 1 hr annealing, and for linewidths as narrow as 0.2-0.1 /spl mu/m. It widens the thermal budget windows and process tolerance for NiSi and further suggests that NiSi is a very promising contact material candidate for future ULSI devices.