The above and other features and advantages of example embodiments will become more apparent by describing them in detailed with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Detailed example embodiments are disclosed herein. However, specific structural and/or functional details disclosed herein are merely representative for purposes of describing example embodiments. The claims may, however, may be embodied in many alternate forms and should not be construed as limited to only example embodiments set forth herein.
It will be understood that when a component is referred to as being “on,” “connected to” or “coupled to” another component, it can be directly on, connected to or coupled to the other component or intervening components may be present. In contrast, when a component is referred to as being “directly on,” “directly connected to” or “directly coupled to” another component, there are no intervening components present. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.
It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections, these elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element, component, region, layer or section from another element, component, region, layer or section. Thus, a first element, component, region, layer or section discussed below could be termed a second element, component, region, layer or section without departing from the teachings of example embodiments.
Spatially relative terms, such as “beneath,” “below,” “lower,” “above,” “upper” and the like, may be used herein for ease of description to describe one component or feature's relationship to another component(s) or feature(s) as illustrated in the drawings. It will be understood that the spatially relative terms are intended to encompass different orientations of the device in use or operation in addition to the orientation depicted in the figures.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting. As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components.
Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and/or scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which example embodiments belong. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.
Reference will now be made to example embodiments, which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like components throughout. Example embodiments should not be construed as limited to the particular shapes of regions illustrated in these figures but are to include deviations in shapes that result, for example, from manufacturing. For example, an implanted region illustrated as a rectangle will, typically, have rounded or curved features and/or a gradient of implant concentration at its edges rather than a binary change from implanted to non-implanted region. Likewise, a buried region formed by implantation may result in some implantation in the region between the buried region and the surface through which the implantation takes place. Thus, the regions illustrated in the figures are schematic in nature and their shapes are not intended to illustrate the actual shape of a region of a device and are not intended to limit the scope of the claims.
As illustrated, the active fin 128 may be formed on or from the substrate 100. The active fin height 128 may be higher than a bottom surface of the isolation layer 130. As a result, both sides of the active fin 128 may be exposed and look like a fin. In example embodiments, the upper surface of the active fin 128 may be substantially planar with the upper surface of the isolation region 130. In example embodiments, an upper surface of the active fin 128 may be substantially planar with an upper surface of the isolation region 130 and a first portion of the upper surface of the isolation region 130 may be substantially planar with an upper surface of the active fin 128 and a second portion of the upper surface of the isolation region 130 adjacent to the active fin 128 may be lower than the upper surface of the active fin 128.
The active fin 128 may have a rounded or semicircular trench surface in a center area thereof, for example, the first trench 124 may have a rounded or semicircular trench surface in a center area thereof. Each portion of the active fin 128 on either side of the first trench 124 may be doped to act as a source or drain. In example embodiments, the recessed region increases a surface area overlap between the gate structure 140 and the active fin 128.
The gate structure 140 may be formed in the second trench 120a and the isolation layer 130 as a buried gate structure, by a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process. As a result, misalignment will not occur.
As shown in
The buried gate structure 140 may further include a buried gate spacer (discussed in more detail below with respect to
In other example embodiments, a portion of the buried gate structure 140 in the isolation region 130 may have a first depth and a portion of the buried gate structure 140 in the recessed portion may have a second depth, the first depth being greater than the second depth.
In example embodiments, the FET may further include a gate insulation layer on the active fin 128. An example of a gate insulation layer is a gate insulation layer 132 discussed below in conjunction with
In example embodiments, the FET may further include an oxide layer between the substrate and the active fin and the isolation region and a nitride layer between the oxide layer and the isolation region. Examples of an oxide and a nitride layer are inner oxide 108 and nitride layer 110, discussed below in conjunction with
In example embodiments, the FET may be included a part of a nonvolatile memory device, for example, a DRAM, with or without contact plugs, as discussed in more detail below with respect to
As illustrated in
Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a chemical process used to produce high-purity, high-performance solid materials. In a typical CVD process, a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer, is exposed to one or more volatile precursor compounds within a reaction chamber under a combination of pressure and radio frequency (RF) power sufficient to induce reaction and/or deposition of the precursor compounds on the substrate surface to produce the desired deposition layer. Parameters controlled during a CVD process may include, for example, pressure, RF power, substrate bias, substrate temperature and precursor compound feed rates. Unreacted precursor compounds and/or volatile byproducts are typically removed from the reaction chamber by a flow of carrier gas and/or pumping.
CVD processes may be broadly classified according to their operating pressure and include, for example, atmospheric pressure CVD (APCVD), low-pressure CVD (LPCVD), or ultrahigh vacuum CVD (UHVCVD) (a term generally applies to processes at pressures, typically below 10−6 Pa (˜10−8 torr), or by certain other characteristics including, for example, aerosol assisted CVD (AACVD), direct liquid injection CVD (DLICVD), microwave plasma-assisted CVD (MPCVD), plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD), remote plasma-enhanced CVD (RPECVD), atomic layer CVD (ALCVD), hot wire CVD (HWCVD) (also known as catalytic CVD (Cat-CVD) or hot filament CVD (HFCVD), metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), rapid thermal CVD (RTCVD) and vapor phase epitaxy (VPE).
Silicon, for example, may be deposited using CVD processes that utilize the decomposition of silane (SiH4), using a silane feedstock that may include nitrogen or other carrier gas(es). The silicon may also be doped by including an additional precursor compound, for example, phosphine, arsine and/or diborane during the deposition may be to the CVD chamber. Diborane increases the growth rate, but arsine and phosphine decrease growth rate.
Silicon dioxide is also commonly deposited using CVD processes using as feed gases a combination of silane, oxygen, dichlorosilane (SiCl2H2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and/or tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS; Si(OC2H5)4). The choice of source gas(es) may be influenced by the thermal stability of the material(s) already present on the substrate. For example, silane can be used for forming oxide deposits between about 300 and 500° C., dichlorosilane at around 900° C., and TEOS between about 650 and 750° C. The choice of source gas(es) may also be influenced by the device requirements in that silane-based oxide depositions tend to exhibit reduced dielectric strength and tend to be less conformal than those achieved with dichlorosilane and/or TEOS. Like silicon, additional atomic species may be introduced into the silicon oxide during deposition to provide for alloyed and/or doped material layers including, for example, silicon dioxide alloyed with phosphorus pentoxide (P-glass) to permit reflow processing at temperatures above about 1000° C.
Although some metals, for example, aluminum and copper, are rarely deposited using a CVD process, other metals, particularly the refractory metals are commonly deposited using CVD processes including, for example, molybdenum, tantalum, titanium and tungsten and their oxides and nitrides.
While conventional device isolation technology for electrically isolating individual devices or active regions on which such devices will be formed during fabrication of semiconductor devices utilized local oxidation of silicon (LOCOS) method, increasingly demanding design rules have led to the widespread adoption of shallow trench isolation (STI) methods.
STI methods form device isolation regions by etching a pattern of shallow trenches into a substrate and then filling these trenches with one or more suitable dielectric materials, for example, silicon oxide. A typical STI method includes forming a hard pattern on the substrate, for example, the combination of a pad oxide layer and a nitride layer. This hard pattern is then used as an etch mask for removing a portion of the exposed substrate to form a trench pattern. An insulating material may then be applied to the etched substrate to fill the trench pattern and the resulting structure may be subjected to chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) and/or etchback processes to expose the active regions under the hard mask and provide a planar surface suitable for subsequent processing. An optional capping layer may also be applied to the primary insulating material.
The insulating material(s) may be applied using a variety of techniques including, for example, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and/or spin-on-glass (SOG) methods and may include materials such as high density plasma CVD (HDP-CVD) oxides, undoped silicate glasses (USG), doped silicate glasses (PSG, BSG, BPSG) and/or tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) oxides.
As illustrated in
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A depth of the second trench 120 may vary. For example, as shown in
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The gate insulation layer 132 may act as a buried gate spacer on sidewalls of the active fin 128. In example embodiments, the buried gate spacer may be buried entirely below the upper surface of the active fin 128 and the upper surface of the isolation region 130. In example embodiments, the buried gate spacer may be as wide as the active fin 128.
A gate electrode 134 may be formed in the first trench 124 between source and drain regions, in the second trench 120, on the gate insulation layer 132, and/or on the isolation layer 130.
As illustrated in
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As shown in
The gate insulation layer 204 may act as a buried gate spacer on sidewalls of the active fin 128. In example embodiments, the buried gate spacer may be buried entirely below the upper surface of the active fin 128 and the upper surface of the isolation region 230. In example embodiments, the buried gate spacer may be as wide as the active fin 128.
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
As described above, example embodiments may increase the length of the channel for a similar sized conventional FET. As a result, the “short channel effect” may be reduced.
As described above, example embodiments may increase the width of the channel for a similar sized conventional FET. As a result, the “narrow width effect” may be reduced.
As described above, example embodiments may reduce or prevent an increase in the threshold.
Any of the above features may be used to improve or maximize device performance, and/or reduce the sizes of elements formed on a substrate.
As described above, example embodiments may use a damascene process to reduce or prevent a misaligned gate node and/or to simplify the FET manufacturing process.
Although example embodiments have been described above, these example embodiments may be varied and/or augmented in many ways.
For example, although example embodiments as illustrated in
Further, example embodiments, as described above, may be implemented in any number of field effect transistors, for example, metal-oxide-semiconductor FETs (MOSFETs), junction FETs (JFETs), metal semiconductor FETs (MESFETs), heterostructure FETs (HFETs), and/or modulation-doped FETs (MODFETs).
Example embodiments, as described above, may also be used in many types of non-volatile semiconductor memory, for example, floating gate non-volatile memory, nitride non-volatile memory, ferroelectric memories, magnetic memories, and/or phase change memories.
Example embodiments, as described above, may include any type of charge storing device, for example, a floating gate storage charge storage device, a charge trap layer storage device, and/or a nanocrystalline charge storing device.
Example embodiments, as described above, may also be used in many types of memory cells, for example, a metal-oxide-insulator-oxide-semiconductor (MOIOS), for example, a silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-semiconductor (SONOS), a metal-oxide-nitride-oxide-semiconductor (MONOS), or a tantalum-aluminum oxide-nitride-oxide-semiconductor (TANOS). As set forth above, a SONOS structure may use silicon as the control gate material, a MONOS structure may use a metal as the control gate material, and a TANOS structure may use tantalum as the control gate material.
An MOIOS memory device may also use a charge trap layer, for example, silicon-nitride (Si3N4) instead of a floating gate as a charge storing device. The MOIOS memory device may have another structure in which nitride and oxide may be sequentially stacked instead of a stacked structure formed of a floating gate and insulating layer stacked on the upper and lower portions between the substrate and the control gate as in the memory cell of a flash semiconductor device. The MOIOS memory device may use the shifting characteristic of the threshold voltage as charges may be trapped in the insulator or nitride layer.
Although example embodiments illustrated in
Example embodiments, as described above, may be implemented in flash memory, for example, NOT-OR (NOR) type and NOT-AND (NAND) flash memory. Example embodiments, as set forth above, may be arranged in a circuit array, for example, in an array of NOR or NAND strings.
Example embodiments, as described above, may also be stacked on another similar arrangement, separated by an insulator, for example, a dielectric. The stack may be a vertical stack and may include two or more arrangements as illustrated in
Example embodiments, as described above, may also be implemented in charge storage devices which store a single bit of data or in a multi-level cell, where two or more bits may be stored.
Example embodiments, as described above, may be implemented in non-volatile memory used in various electronic products, for example, personal computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), cellular phones, digital still cameras, digital video cameras, video game players, memory cards, and other electronic devices. Example embodiments as described above may also be implemented in non-volatile memory cards including multimedia cards (MMC), secure digital (SD) cards, compact flash cards, memory sticks, smart media cards, and extreme digital (xD) picture cards.
While example embodiments have been particularly shown and described with reference to the example embodiments shown in the drawings, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10-2006-0045494 | May 2006 | KR | national |