Scaling-driven nanoelectronics

Transistors (front-end)

• Transistor gates (shallow junctions)
• New materials (high-k, metal gates, strain)
• New architectures (multi-gate field effect transistors)

Invent - Imec wants to improve the performance of transistors by introducing new materials with a high dielectric constant (high-k) to replace the SiO, and metals to replace the polysilicon in the gate electrodes. imec also examines strain engineering: strained silicon allows a higher electron mobility, and thus a better transistor performance.

Achieve - Imec reported improving the performance of planar CMOS using hafnium-based high-k dielectrics and tantalumcarbide metal gates for the 32nm CMOS node. Low threshold voltage (Vt) is achieved by applying a thin dielectric cap between the gate dielectric and the metal gate. In addition, the use of laser-only annealing for gate stack engineering resulted in a significant decrease of the minimum sustainable gate length and in an improved short-channel effect control.