Impact of Active Surface Area on Performance and Reliability of Tri-gate FinFET

Abstract

In this work, a contact etch stop layer (CESL) was found to cause tensile stress above the gate of FinFET devices, and the top tensile stress introduced compressive stress in the channel. With increasing active surface area (SA), a higher compressive stress was observed. The effect of compressive stress became more evident, resulting in a lower current but a higher reliability for nFinFET devices.