• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.215-216
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• 2013

The silicide is a compound of Si with an electropositive component. Silicides are commonly used in silicon-based microelectronics to reduce resistivity of gate and local interconnect metallization. The popular silicide candidates, CoSi2 and TiSi2, have some limitations. TiSi2 showed line width dependent sheet resistance and has difficulty in transformation of the C49 phase to the low resistive C54. CoSi2 consumes more Si than TiSi2. Nickel silicide is a promising material to substitute for those silicide materials providing several advantages; low resistivity, lower Si consumption and lower formation temperature. Nickel silicide (NiSi) nanowire (NW) has features of a geometrically tiny size in terms of diameter and significantly long directional length, with an excellent electrical conductivity. According to these advantages, NiSi NWs have been applied to various nanoscale applications, such as interconnects [1,2], field emitters [3], and functional microscopy tips [4]. Beside its tiny geometric feature, NW can provide a large surface area at a fixed volume. This makes the material viable for photovoltaic architecture, allowing it to be used to enhance the light-active region [5]. Additionally, a recent report has suggested that an effective antireflection coating-layer can be made with by NiSi NW arrays [6]. A unique growth mechanism of nickel silicide (NiSi) nanowires (NWs) was thermodynamically investigated. The reaction between Ni and Si primarily determines NiSi phases according to the deposition condition. Optimum growth conditions were found at $375^{\circ}C$ leading long and high-density NiSi NWs. The ignition of NiSi NWs is determined by the grain size due to the nucleation limited silicide reaction. A successive Ni diffusion through a silicide layer was traced from a NW grown sample. Otherwise Ni-rich or Si-rich phase induces a film type growth. This work demonstrates specific existence of NiSi NW growth [7].

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.157-157
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• 2008

As the minimum feature size of semiconductor devices scales down to nano-scale regime, ultra shallow junction is highly necessary to suppress short channel effect. At the same time, Ni-silicide has attracted a lot of attention because silicide can improve device performance by reducing the parasitic resistance of source/drain region. Recently, further improvement of device performance by reducing silicide to source/drain region or tuning the work function of silicide closer to the band edge has been studied extensively. Rare earth elements, such as Er and Yb, and Pd or Pt elements are interesting for n-type and p-type devices, respectively, because work function of those materials is closer to the conduction and valance band, respectively. In this paper, we increased the work function between Ni-silicide and source/drain by using Pd stacked structure (Pd/Ni/TiN) for high performance PMOSFET. We demonstrated that it is possible to control the barrier height of Ni-silicide by adjusting the thickness of Pd layer. Therefore, the Ni-silicide using the Pd stacked structure could be applied for high performance PMOSFET.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.10-10
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• 2008

Silicide is inevitable for CMOSFETs to reduce RC delay by reducing the sheet resistance of gate and source/drain regions. Ni-silicide is a promising material which can be used for the 65nm CMOS technologies. Ni-silicide was proposed in order to make up for the weak points of Co-silicide and Ti-silicide, such as the high consumption of silicon and the line width limitation. Low resistivity NiSi can be formed at low temperature ($\sim500^{\circ}C$) with only one-step heat treat. Ni silicide also has less dependence of sheet resistance on line width and less consumption of silicon because of low resistivity NiSi phase. However, the low thermal stability of the Ni-silicide is a major problem for the post process implementation, such as metalization or ILD(inter layer dielectric) process, that is, it is crucial to prevent both the agglomeration of mono-silicide and its transformation into $NiSi_2$. To solve the thermal immune problem of Ni-silicide, various studies, such as capping layer and inter layer, have been worked. In this paper, the Ni-silicide utilizing Pd stacked layer (Pd/Ni/TiN) was studied for highly thermal immune nano-scale CMOSFETs technology. The proposed structure was compared with NiITiN structure and showed much better thermal stability than Ni/TiN.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.219-219
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• 2010

Silicides have been commonly used in the Si technology due to the compatibility with Si. Recently the silicide has been applied in solar cells [1] and nanoscale interconnects [2]. The modulation of Ni silicide phase is an important issue to satisfy the needs. The excellent electric-conductive nickel monosilicide (NiSi) nanowire has proven the low resistive nanoscale interconnects. Otherwise the Ni disilicide (NiSi2) provides a template to grow a crystalline Si film above it by the little lattice mismatch of 0.4% between Si and NiSi2. We present the formation of Ni silicide phases performed by the single deposition and the co-deposition methods. The co-deposition of Ni and Si provides a stable Ni silicide phase at a reduced processing temperature comparing to the single deposition method. It also discusses the Schottky contact formation between the Ni silicide and the grown crystalline Si film for the solar cell application.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.233-236
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• 2008

Halide-activated pack cementation was utilized to deposit B-doped silicide coating. The pack powders were consisted of $3Wt.c/oNH_4Cl$, 7Wt.c/oSi, $90Wt.c/oAl_2O_3+TiB_2$. B-doped silicide coating was consisted of two layers, an outer layer of $NbSi_2$ and an inner layer of $Nb_5Si_3$. Isothermal oxidation resistance of B-doped silicide coating was tested at $1250^{\circ}C$ in static air. B-doped silicide coating had excellent oxidation resistance, because continuous $SiO_2$ scale which serves as obstacle of oxygen diffusion was formed after oxidation.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.110-114
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• 2007

Dependence of the thermal stability of nickel silicide on the film stress of inter layer dielectric (ILD) layer has been investigated in this study and silicon nitride $(Si_3N_4)$ layer is used as an ILD layer. Nickel silicide was formed with a one-step rapid thermal process at $500^{\circ}C$ for 30 sec. $2000{\AA}$ thick $Si_3N_4$ layer was deposited using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition after the formation of Ni silicide and its stress was split from compressive stress to tensile stress by controlling the power of power sources. Stress level of each stress type was also split for thorough analysis. It is found that the thermal stability of nickel silicide strongly depends on the stress type as well as the stress level induced by the $Si_3N_4$ layer. In the case of high compressive stress, silicide agglomeration and its phase transformation from the low-resistivity nickel mono-silicide to the high-resistivity nickel di-silicide are retarded, and hence the thermal stability is obviously improved a lot. However, in the case of high tensile stress, the thermal stability shows the worst case among the stressed cases.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.343-348
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• 1999

The iron silicide films were prepared by chemical vapor deposition method using rf-plasma in variations of substrate temperature. rf-power, and ratio of $SiH_4$ and Fe-precursor. While iron silicide films are generally grown by ion beam synthesis (IBS) method of multi-step process, it is confirmed that iron silicide or $\beta$-phase consolidated $Fe_aSi_bC_cH_d$ was formed by one-step process in this study. The characteristics of films is variable because the different amounts of carbon and hydrogen was involved in the films as a function of dilute ratio of Fe-precursors and silane. It was shown that the different characteristics of films in carbon and hydrogen following the ratio of Fe-precursor and silane. The optical gap energy of films fabricated according to substrate temperature was invariant because active site brought in desorption of hydrogen was limiled. When rf-power was above 240 watt, the optical gap energy turned out to have high values because of dangling bonds increased by etching.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.199-202
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• 1992

Ti-silicide was formed by using metal-Ti target and composite target on the silicon substrate that $BF_2$ were introduced into. Implant energies of $BF_2$ were 50keV and 90keV. The behavior of boron was investigated by SIMS. The redistribution of boron occurred during the formation of Ti-silicide by metal-Ti target and the sample implanted at the energy of 50keV showed severe out-diffusion. In the case that Ti-silicide was formed by composite target, there was little redistribution of boron.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.73-80
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• 2007

For the sub-65 nm CMOS process, it is necessary to develop a new silicide material and an accompanying process that allows the silicide to maintain a low sheet resistance and to have an enhanced thermal stability, thus providing for a wider process window. In this study, we have evaluated the property and unit process compatibility of newly proposed composite silicides. We fabricated composite silicide layers on single crystal silicon from $10nm-Ni_{1-x}Co_x/single-crystalline-Si(100),\;10nm-Ni_{1-x}Co_x/poly-crystalline-\;Si(100)$ wafers (x=0.2, 0.5, and 0.8) with the purpose of mimicking the silicides on source and drain actives and gates. Both the film structures were prepared by thermal evaporation and silicidized by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) from $700^{\circ}C\;to\;1100^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds. The sheet resistance, cross-sectional microstructure, surface composition, were investigated using a four-point probe, a field emission scanning probe microscope, a field ion beam, an X-ray diffractometer, and an Auger electron depth profi1ing spectroscopy, respectively. Finally, our newly proposed composite silicides had a stable resistance up to $1100^{\circ}C$ and maintained it below $20{\Omega}/Sg$., while the conventional NiSi was limited to $700^{\circ}C$. All our results imply that the composite silicide made from NiCo alloy films may be a possible candidate for 65 nm-CMOS devices.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.611-614
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• 2005

In this paper, investigated is the relationship between the formation temperature and the thermal stability of Ni silicide formed with Ni-V (Nickel Vanadium) alloy target. The sheet resistance after the formation of Ni silicide with the Ni-V showed stable characteristic up to RTP temperature of $700\;^{\circ}C$ while degradation of sheet resistance started at that temperature in case of pure-Ni. Moreover, the Ni silicide with Ni-V indicated more thermally stable characteristic after the post-silicidation annealing. It is further found that the thermal robustness of Ni silicide with Ni-V was highly dependent on the formation temperature. With the increased silicidation temperature (around $700\;^{\circ}C$), the more thermally stable Ni silicide was formed than that of low temperature case using the Ni-V.