Combinatorial Methodology for the Exploration of Metal Gate Electrodes on HfO2 for the Advanced Gate Stack

Published

January 23, 2008

Author(s)

Kao-Shuo Chang, Martin L. Green, John S. Suehle, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, Ichiro Takeuchi, K Ohmori, T Chikyow, S De Gendt, Prashant Majhi

Abstract

Combinatorial methodology offers an efficient platform to accelerate the exploration of new materials. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique on the study of new metal gates for the advanced gate stack. We report two examples, Ni-Ti-Pt ternary composition spreads, and Ta1-xAlxNy binary composition spreads, using a combinatorial sputtering tool. For the Ni-Ti-Pt library, wavelength dispersive spectroscopy (WDS), and scanning x-ray microdiffraction spectroscopy were used to determine compositions, and structures, respectively. Scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM) was used to measure work functions (Fm) directly. Our results show Fm variation is consistent with the variation for the corresponding bulk values. For the Ta1-xAlxNy metal gate electrodes, the extracted equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) map suggests thermal stability of the stack, and flat-band voltage shift (DVfb) varied systematically as per our expectation.

Citation

ECS Transactions

Volume

13

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

combinatorial methodology, work function

Citation

Chang, K. , Green, M. , Suehle, J. , Hattrick-Simpers, J. , Takeuchi, I. , Ohmori, K. , Chikyow, T. , De, S. and Majhi, P. (2008), Combinatorial Methodology for the Exploration of Metal Gate Electrodes on HfO₂ for the Advanced Gate Stack, ECS Transactions (Accessed October 10, 2025)