| Abstract: | Wet-etch etchants and the TaN film method for dual-metal-gate integration are investigated. Both HF/HN O_3/H_2O and NH_4OH/H_2O_2 solutions can etch TaN effectively, but poor selectivity to the gate dielectric for the HF/HNO_3/H_2O solution due to HF being included in HF/HNO_3/H_2O, and the fact that TaN is difficult to etch in the NH_4OH/H_2O_2 solution at the first stage due to the thin TaO_xN_y layer on the TaN surface, mean that they are difficult to individually apply to dual-metal-gate integration. A two-step wet etching strategy using the HF/HNO_3/H_2O solution first and the NH_4OH/H_2O_2 solution later can fully remove thin TaN film with a photo-resist mask and has high selectivity to the HfSiON dielectric film underneath. High-k dielectric film surfaces are smooth after wet etching of the TaN metal gate and MOSCAPs show well-behaved C-V and J_g-V_g characteristics, which all prove that the wet etching of TaN has little impact on electrical performance and can be applied to dual-metal-gate integration technology for removing the first TaN metal gate in the PMOS region. |
