Vertical Sandwich Gate-All-Around Field-Effect Transistors with Self-Aligned High-k Metal Gates and Small Effective-Gate-Length Variation

• A new type of vertical nanowire (NW)/nanosheet (NS) field-effect transistors (FETs), termed vertical sandwich gate-all-around (GAA) FETs (VSAFETs), is presented in this work. Moreover, an integration flow that is compatible with processes used in the mainstream industry is proposed for the VSAFETs. Si/SiGe epitaxy, isotropic quasi-atomic-layer etching (qALE), and gate replacement were used to fabricate pVSAFETs for the first time. Vertical GAA FETs with self-aligned high-k metal gates and a small effective-gate-length variation were obtained. Isotropic qALE, including Si-selective etching of SiGe, was developed to control the diameter/thickness of the NW/NS channels. NWs with a diameter of 10 nm and NSs with a thickness of 20 nm were successfully fabricated, and good device characteristics were obtained. Finally, the device performance was investigated and is discussed in this work. © 2019 IEEE.

Keyword

atomic layer etching (ALE)

gate-all-around (GAA)

Si cap

SiGe channel

Vertical nanowire

Etching

Gates (transistor)

Nanowires

Atomic layer etching

Device characteristics

Effective gate length

Field effect transistor (FETs)

Gate-all-around

HIGH-K metal gates

SiGe channels

Vertical nanowires

Si-Ge alloys

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)