(Invited) Laser Annealing in CMOS Manufacturing

Laser Annealing was introduced into mainstream CMOS manufacturing nearly a decade ago and since then has been capturing new applications and expanding into new process regimes. This talk reviews applications of millisecond-scale laser annealing in CMOS technologies from dopant activation to gate dielectric reliability effects to creating metastable alloys to forming silicides. Mitigation of thermal pattern effects and laser-induced substrate distortions are discussed in the context of different device architectures built on both bulk and SOI substrates. Nanosecond-scale laser annealing greatly expands the annealing process space enabling synthesis of highly metastable alloys, spatially selective thermal processing, and targeted thermal treatments with virtually zero impact on the overall thermal budget. Building on the presented historical perspective, we discuss and compare applications of nanosecond-scale laser annealing in future CMOS technologies with 3-dimensional transistors and advanced BEOL interconnects.