Physical characterisation of high-k gate stacks deposited on HF-last surfaces

By the combination of the analysis results of different complementary analysis techniques a methodology is established for the consistent determination of the growth curves for the ALCVD deposition of ZrO/sub 2/ and Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ on HF-last surfaces. Consistency between all data requires the assumption of a lower film density than the bulk one of the different materials. The lower density is also determined independently by X-ray reflectivity (XRR) and is consistent with the thickness as determined by cross-section TEM.