Si-Doped Aluminates for High Temperature Metal-Gate CMOS: Zr-Al-Si-O, A Novel Gate Dielectric for Low Power Applications

We have investigated a new class of high K gate dielectric materials, Si-doped aluminates. These dielectrics, with TiN gates, can withstand high temperature CMOS processing and therefore do not require replacement gate technology. In this paper, we focus on Si-doped zirconium aluminate (Zr-Al-Si-O), with K~20. With the TiN gate stack subjected to the standard CMOS thermal budget, we have scaled this dielectric to t sub (eq) ~1.2nm with leakage current 50mA/cm sup 2 and gate power budget 50mW/cm sup 2, at 1V. For high performance, low power CMOS, beyond SiO sub 2, doped-aluminum oxide (with K~10) may be a viable alternate gate dielectric. Beyond aluminum oxide, aluminates (with K>15) may be viable alternate gate dielectrics.