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Rohm and Haas to market hafnium alternative for high-k applications |
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Mar 27, 2007 at 05:38 PM |
 Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials has signed an exclusive deal with Harvard University's Office of Technology Development (OTD) that will see the materials supplier manufacture and market rare earth metal amidinate compounds, such as lanthanum, dysprosium and gadolinium as alternatives to hafnium-based silicates that have only recently been demonstrated to be able to replace SiO2-based gate dielectrics.
"We're excited to have the opportunity to collaborate with the Harvard team," said Dr. Dominic Yang, business unit director for Rohm and Haas's Microelectronic Technologies business. "The industry's march toward smaller, more powerful semiconductors must include class-leading ALD and CVD processes and materials. Our work with Professor Gordon and his team strengthens Rohm and Haas's existing precursor solutions and builds upon our broad suite of advanced materials for the semiconductor industry."
The work was carried out by Roy Gordon, the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Chemistry in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Published papers highlight that amidinates are well suited for advanced high-k dielectric, metal gate and barrier/adhesion layers without the same challenges of integration found with hafnium combinations. Amorphous GdScO3 films produced at Harvard have shown a high dielectric constant (~22), low fixed charge density, and low interface trap density. A film with 1nm equivalent oxide thickness also demonstrated that the leakage current density is less than 2mA/cm.2
Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials is planning to produce the rare earth compounds at its North Andover, MA, facility and plans to collaborate with Harvard scientists on improving all aspects of the materials and atomic layer deposition and chemical vapor deposition processes.
Rohm and Haas did not state when the metal amidinate compounds would be produced or marketed, however, only Intel Corp has so far announced that it will use high-k dielectrics with a metal gate structure beginning with the 45nm node that should see production by the end of 2007. The majority of advanced logic chip manufacturers are not expected to adopt high-k and metal schemes until later.
More details of the work being carried out at Harvard can be viewed here:
http://www.chem.harvard.edu/groups/gordon/papers/ALD_of_Gadolinium.pdf
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