Performance Improvement by Cold Xe Pre-Amorphization Implant for Nickel Silicidation of 28-nm PMOSFET

The cold Xenon pre-amorphization implant (Xe PAI) for nickel silicidation of 28-nm PMOSFET is investigated in this letter. For the first time, it is demonstrated that compared with the cold Si PAI, the cold Xe PAI can significantly reduce the global variation of threshold voltage, the OFF-state leakage, and the 1/f noise, but with yield improvement. The improvement is attributed to the uniform amorphization with the reduced defects and a flat nickel silicide/substrate interface induced by cold Xe PAI.