Hybrid Wafers Boost Performance

摘要

Most wafers today are processed on silicon sliced on the (100) plane and oriented in the < 110 > direction (as determined by a notch in the wafer). A simple reori-entation of device channels to the < 100 > channel can increase hole mobility in PMOS devices by ～15%, in an effect similar to what is seen in strained silicon devices (see "Strain Equals Gain: The New Face of Silicon," p. 28). This is done either by changing the layout of the PMOS transistors during design, or re-orienting channel direction on the standard (100) surface orientation.