In this study, the thermal stability behavior of nanoscale polysilicide resistors with different dopant types was investigated in 90 nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor process. It was found that thermal stability performance of polysilicide resistors was impacted not only by the silicide thickness but also by the relation between silicide grain size distribution and the actual poly linewidth. A quantitative equation for thermal stability was derived by the combination of thickness and linewidth. This equation showed good correlation with the activation energy of the degradation for the narrow poly width resistors. (c) 2006 American Vacuum Society.