In this letter, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) and microwave annealing (MA) are compared to demonstrate the dopant activation. Using microwave annealing, the dopant in the Si was well-activated and showed suppressed dopant diffusion, as compared to traditional high temperature RTA. In addition, SiNx films after low temperature MA treatment presented higher tensile stress than the films annealed by RTA. Therefore, this MA approach could potentially be applied to these behaviors of I distribution and higher tensile stress SiNx film may be useful in contact etch-stop layer or stress memorization technique in the fabrication of small pitch nanoscaled n-channel Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors. (C) 2011 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/1.3536462] All rights reserved.