Study of Pre-Amorphization Implant Species Impact on PNP Performance

Pre-amorphization implant (PAI) is used to prevent channeling and transient enhanced diffusion (TED). High-energy boron collector implants tend to diffuse to the base, causing higher leakages. Several species can be used for PAI, each with its own set of challenges. In this paper, we studied the effects of argon and silicon as PAI in a PNP device. Argon PAI can improve leakage performance but causes a significant decrease in gain due to an increase in base current. Silicon, on the other hand, is the best species for improving leakage by eight orders of magnitude without much degradation in gain. The superior leakage performance provided by silicon PAI makes it a highly reliable choice for advanced semiconductor manufacturing. The findings from this study can be applied to other device architectures where PAI is used for performance improvements.