Effective work function control of metal inserted poly-Si electrodes on HfSiO dielectrics by in-situ oxygen treatment of metal surface

We fabricated novel poly-Si/TiN/HfSiO/SiO2 gate stacks by using an in-situ oxygen treatment process of a TiN electrode surface in order to suppress Si diffusion from poly-Si upper layer during post deposition annealing (PDA). The Si depth profile after PDA showed that no Si diffused into oxidized stacks due to the formation of TiON layers as a Si diffusion barrier. Furthermore, a high effective work function (EWF) of 4.94 eV was obtained from the oxidized stack even after PDA at 1000 °C. This high EWF is due not only to Si diffusion barrier formation but also to oxygen vacancy compensation by diffused-oxygen from the TiON layer. However, we observed significant growth of interfacial SiO2 after high temperature annealing. These results indicate a trade-off relationship between EWF control and equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) scaling, and imply that an additional method for EWF modulation is required for scaled high-k devices.