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Product Briefing Outline: Applied Materials has launched the ‘Applied Producer Celera' PECVD system, which is designed to handle advanced strain engineering technologies for enabling faster transistors in 45nm-and-beyond devices. The Producer Celera enables improved transistor drive current by applying a uniaxial stress in the device channel.

Problem: Multiple strain engineering films are typically used in advanced devices to increase the transistor drive current and thus optimize their speed and power performance. Strain films, combined with new high k/metal gate technologies, will extend chip scaling beyond the 45nm node and enable the continuation of Moore's Law.

Solution: By integrating Applied's proprietary ‘Nanocure UV' cure technology with an enhanced nitride deposition chamber, the system increases film tensile stress by more than 30 percent, to 1.7GPa, with extendibility to exceed 2.0GPa, according to the company. The same deposition chamber can deposit films with compressive stresses up to 3.5GPa for >85 percent improvement in drive current when used with SiGe recessed source/drain structures. Key to the Producer Celera system is its integrated multi-step deposition and cure process that is claimed to have the highest PECVD tensile stresses in NMOS devices. The entire process is performed in situ, without exposure to air, improving device reliability and performance, according to the company.

Applications: Compressive and tensile high-stress silicon nitride films for strain engineering.

Platform: The Applied Celera deposition and UV cure processes are integrated on the production-proven, high-throughput Producer platform. With its flexible Twin Chamber configuration, the Producer platform enables integrated multi-step deposition and UV cure process capability for improved transistor performance and reliability. Both tensile and compressive stress films can be deposited in the same Twin Chamber for process flexibility, and platform extendibility enables customers to leverage the Producer toolset for multiple process nodes.

Availability: May 2007 onwards.