SILICIDE FOR CONTACTS AND INTERCONNECTS.

The use of silicide materials in silicon VLSI technology is reviewed in three important areas: 1) the application of silicides to device contacts for lowering the contact resistance and/or controlling Schottky barrier heights; 2) the application of silicides on top of polysilicon (polycide) as gate materials in MOS devices for enhancing the interconnections; and 3) the application of silicides to all diffusion and polysilicon areas simultaneously by using the self-aligned scheme (salicide) for reducing device series resistance and enhancing interconnects. In each case, the choice of materials, the critical processing parameters, and the technical constraints are discussed.