Improved control of momentary rapid thermal annnealing for silicidation

Temperature control and wafer-to-wafer reproducibility during momentary annealing via rapid thermal annealing is critical for TiSi2 Self-Aligned si LICIDE (SALICIDE) processing for deep submicron complementary metal oxide semiconductor. TiSi2 must undergo a transformation from the high resistivity C49 phase to the low resistivity C54 phase for applications where it is used as a gate conductor. A process modification to achieve improved wafer-to-wafer and within wafer temperature reproducibility is demonstrated. It has the additional benefit to the TiSi2 salicide process of enabling anneals of reduced duration, enhancing suicide transformation to the desired phase without leading to agglomeration. © 1993 The Mineral,Metal & Materials Society,Inc.