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A gate-last process for fabricating HfSiON/TaN n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect transistors (NMOSFETs) is presented. In the process, a HfSiON gate dielectric with an equivalent oxide thickness of 10 Å was prepared by a simple physical vapor deposition method. Poly-Si was deposited on the HfSiON gate dielectric as a dummy gate. After the source/drain formation, the poly-Si dummy gate was removed by tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) wet-etching and replaced by a TaN metal gate. Because the metal gate was formed after the ion-implant doping activation process, the effects of the high temperature process on the metal gate were avoided. The fabricated device exhibits good electrical characteristics, including good driving ability and excellent sub-threshold characteristics. The device's gate length is 73 nm, the driving current is 117 μA/μm under power supply voltages of VGS = VDS = 1.5 V and the off-state current is only 4.4 nA/μm. The lower effective work function of TaN on HfSiON gives the device a suitable threshold voltage (∼ 0.24 V) for high performance NMOSFETs. The device's excellent performance indicates that this novel gate-last process is practical for fabricating high performance MOSFETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth process of GeOx films formed by plasma post-oxidation (PPO) at room temperature (RT) is investigated using angle-resolved x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AR-XPS). The experimental results show that the distributions of the Ge4+ states, a mixture of the Ge2+ and Ge3+ states, and the Ge+1 states are localized from the GeOx surface to the GeOx/Ge interface. Moreover, the Ge+1 states are predominant when the two outermost layers of Ge atoms are oxidized. These findings are helpful for establishing in-depth knowledge of the growth mechanism of the GeOx layer and valuable for the optimization of Ge-based gate stacks for future complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) field-effect transistor (CMOSFET) devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of high-k films fabrication, a novel multi deposition multi annealing (MDMA) technique is introduced to replace simple post deposition annealing. The leakage current decreases with the increase of the post deposition annealing (PDA) times. The equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) decreases when the annealing time(s) change from 1 to 2. Furthermore, the characteristics of SILC (stress-induced leakage current) for an ultra-thin SiO2/HfO2 gate dielectric stack are studied systematically. The increase of the PDA time(s) from 1 to 2 can decrease the defect and defect generation rate in the HK layer. However, increasing the PDA times to 4 and 7 may introduce too much oxygen, therefore the type of oxygen vacancy changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coupling effect of air-bridges on broadband spiral inductors in SiC-based MMIC technology has been investigated deeply. The fabricated 1-nH spiral inductor on SiC substrate demonstrates a self-resonant frequency of 51.6 GHz, with a peak Q-fact of 12.14 at 22.1 GHz. From the S-parameters measurements, the exponential decay phenomenon is observed for L, Q-factor, and SRF with the air-bridge height decreasing, and an analytic expression is concluded to exactly fit the measured data which can be used to predict the performance of the spiral inductor. All the coefficients in the formula have specific meaning. By means of establishing the lumped model, the parasitic coupling capacitance of the air-bridge has been extracted and presents the exponential decay with the air-bridge heights decreasing which indicates that this capacitor is directly related to the coupling effect of the air-bridge. Through the electromagnetic field distribution simulation, the details of the electric field around the air-bridge have been presented which demonstrate the formation and the variation principles of the coupling effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, ultrathin pure HfO2 and Al-doped HfO2 films (about 4-nm thick) are prepared by atomic layer deposition and the crystallinities of these films before and after annealing at temperatures ranging from 550 °C to 750 °C are analyzed by grazing incidence x-ray diffraction. The as-deposited pure HfO2 and Al-doped HfO2 films are both amorphous. After 550-°C annealing, a multiphase consisting of a few orthorhombic, monoclinic and tetragonal phases can be observed in the pure HfO2 film while the Al-doped HfO2 film remains amorphous. After annealing at 650 °C and above, a great number of HfO2 tetragonal phases, a high-temperature phase with higher dielectric constant, can be stabilized in the Al-doped HfO2 film. As a result, the dielectric constant is enhanced up to about 35. The physical mechanism of the phase transition behavior is discussed from the viewpoint of thermodynamics and kinetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An X-band inverse class-F power amplifier is realized by a 1-mm AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT). The intrinsic and parasitic components inside the transistor, especially output capacitor Cds, influence the harmonic impedance heavily at the X-band, so compensation design is used for meeting the harmonic condition of inverse class-F on the current source plane. Experiment results show that, in the continuous-wave mode, the power amplifier achieves 61.7% power added efficiency (PAE), which is 16.3% higher than the class-AB power amplifier realized by the same kind of HEMT. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first inverse class-F GaN internally-matched power amplifier, and the PAE is quite high at the X-band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thickness effect of the TiN capping layer on the time dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) characteristic of ultra-thin EOT high-k metal gate NMOSFET is investigated in this paper. Based on experimental results, it is found that the device with a thicker TiN layer has a more promising reliability characteristic than that with a thinner TiN layer. From the charge pumping measurement and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) analysis, it is indicated that the sample with the thicker TiN layer introduces more Cl passivation at the IL/Si interface and exhibits a lower interface trap density. In addition, the influences of interface and bulk trap density ratio Nit/Not are studied by TDDB simulations through combining percolation theory and the kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) method. The lifetime reduction and Weibull slope lowering are explained by interface trap effects for TiN capping layers with different thicknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TiAlC metal gate for the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOSFET) is grown by the atomic layer deposition method using TiCl4 and Al(CH3)3(TMA) as precursors. It is found that the major product of the TiCl4 and TMA reaction is TiAlC, and the components of C and Al are found to increase with higher growth temperature. The reaction mechanism is investigated by using x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The reaction mechanism is as follows. Ti is generated through the reduction of TiCl4 by TMA. The reductive behavior of TMA involves the formation of ethane. The Ti from the reduction of TiCl4 by TMA reacts with ethane easily forming heterogenetic TiCH2, TiCH=CH2 and TiC fragments. In addition, TMA thermally decomposes, driving Al into the TiC film and leading to TiAlC formation. With the growth temperature increasing, TMA decomposes more severely, resulting in more C and Al in the TiAlC film. Thus, the film composition can be controlled by the growth temperature to a certain extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates quantum fluctuations characteristic of time-dependent broadband pumping frequency non-degenerate optical parametric amplifier for below and above threshold regions. It finds that a high squeezing and entanglement can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that the sea return echo contains contributions from at least two scattering mechanisms. In addition to the resonant Bragg scattering, the specular point scattering plays an important role as the incidence angle becomes smaller ([?] 20 deg). Here, in combination with the Kirchhoff integral equation of scattering field and the stationary phase approximation, analytical expressions for Doppler shift and spectral bandwidth of specular point scattering, which are insensitive to the polarization state, are derived theoretically. For comparison, the simulated results related to the two-scale method (TSM) and the method of moment (MOM) are also presented. It is found that the Doppler shift and the spectral bandwidth given by TSM are insufficient at small incidence angles. However, a comparison between the analytical results and the numerical simulations by MOM in the backscatter configuration shows that our proposed formulas are valid for the specular point scattering case. In this work, the dependences of the predicted results on incidence angle, radar frequency, and wind speed are also discussed. The obtained conclusions seem promising for a better understanding of the Doppler spectra of the specular point scattering fields from time-varying sea surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]