In a process using the stress memorization technique the conventional spike
anneal for dopant activation is performed after the deposition of a tensile
stressor capping layer [Khamankar04,Ota02,Chen04,Horstmann05]. This layer
is subsequently removed before the salicide process. Even though the stressor
nitride layer is removed from the final structure, the stress has been
transferred from the nitride film to the channel during annealing and is
memorized during re-crystallization of source/drain and the poly gate
amorphized layers. Improvements of the on-current up to 15% were reported for
n-channel MOSFETs using this technique [Chan05].
E. Ungersboeck: Advanced Modelling Aspects of Modern Strained CMOS Technology