Flash Annealing Technology for USJ: Modeling and Metrology

Millisecond annealing either by flash lamp or laser appears to be the leading approach to meet the needs of ultra-shallow junction annealing and polysilicon activation for advanced technology nodes. There are many advantages to this technology including high electrical activation, excellent lateral abruptness, controlled and limited dopant diffusion and the ability to engineer the extended defects remaining from the ion implantation. There are also many challenges such as potential pattern effects, local and global wafer stress and difficulty in process integration. Additional challenges include the need to extend the capabilities of process TCAD to allow accurate simulation and prediction of the ms processes. Modeling of diffusion, activation and defect evolution for a variety of technologically interesting doping conditions must be dependable to allow the device designer and process engineer to predict the device behavior after ms annealing. Existing models fall short or still need to be validated. Metrology for ultra-shallow junctions is also a challenge. The ability to accurately and repeatably measure sheet resistance and junction leakage on junctions of the order of 10nm deep is very difficult. This paper provides an overview of flash lamp annealing and deal with some promising extensions of process simulation to enable the predictive modeling of junction behavior under flash lamp annealing conditions. We also examine some of the new metrology techniques for characterization of these very shallow junctions and look at some of the trends exhibited for different junction formation details