Abstract
Metal silicides have been widely used to reduce the resistance of source/drain of microelectronic devices. Among all metal silicides, NiSi is one of the most promising silicides due to good self-aligning properties for ULSI technology. NiSi possesses low resistivity, low silicon consumption, low processing temperature, and relatively insensitivity to the linewidth of the silicides. However, one has to solve problems associated with NiSi faces such as phase and morphological stability so as to render any IC applications practical. The addition of CrOx interlayer and stress loading are examined for their influences on the phase transformation and formation temperature.By substrate curvature measurements, X-ray diffraction, and Auger electron spectroscopy, a detail reaction sequence for the samples annealed at a ramp rate 5 ℃/min is revealed. From XRD results, the formation temperature of Ni2Si increases for samples annealed with external stress . For the Ni/CrOx/Si system, Ni atoms are difficult to diffuse through the CrOx layer at temperatures below 700℃. The Ni2Si and NiSi are not detectable below this temperature.