The invention relates to an one-time programmable (OTP) memory device, and more particularly to an OTP memory device including metal gate.
Semiconductor memory devices including non-volatile memory devices have been widely used in various electronic devices such as cellular phones, digital cameras, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other applications. Typically, non-volatile memory devices include multi-time programmable (MTP) memory devices and one-time programmable (OTP) memory devices. In contrast to rewritable memories, OTP memory devices have the advantage of low fabrication cost and easy storage. However, OTP memory devices could only perform a single data recording action such that when certain memory cells of a destined storage block were stored with a writing program, those memory cells could not be written again.
Since current OTP memory devices still have the disadvantage of weak reading current and longer stress time under program mode, how to improve the current architecture for OTP memory devices has become an important task in this field.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for fabricating an one time programmable (OTP) memory device includes the steps of: forming a first gate structure and a second gate structure extending along a first direction on a substrate; forming a diffusion region adjacent to two sides of the first gate structure and the second gate structure; forming a silicide layer adjacent to the first gate structure; and patterning the first gate structure for forming a third gate structure and a fourth gate structure.
According to another aspect of the present invention, an one time programmable (OTP) memory device having a first shallow trench isolation (STI) and a second STI in a substrate, a first gate structure disposed on the first STI and the substrate, and a second gate structure disposed on the second STI and the substrate. Preferably, no silicide layer is disposed between the first gate structure and the second gate structure.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, an one time programmable (OTP) memory device having a first shallow trench isolation (STI) and a second STI in a substrate, a diffusion break structure disposed between the first STI and the second STI, a first gate structure disposed on the first STI, the substrate, and the diffusion break structure, and a second gate structure disposed on the second STI, the substrate, and the diffusion break structure.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
Referring to
In this embodiment, metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors are preferably formed on the I/O region 14 and the core region 16 while integrated structures including MOS transistor and OTP capacitor are formed on the OTP capacitor region 18. It should also be noted that since the present invention pertains to patterning gate structure of source line in the OTP capacitor region 18 after forming silicide layer, elements on the I/O region 14, core region 16, and the SRAM region 20 are not shown in the following process for the sake of brevity.
Next, referring to
Next, a plurality of gate structures 34, 36, 38 are formed on the substrate 12. As shown in the top view on the left side, each of the gate structures 34, 36, 38 are disposed extending along a first direction such as Y-direction, in which the gate structure 36 in the middle is serving as a source line while the gate structures 34, 38 adjacent to two sides of the gate structure 36 are serving as word lines. In this embodiment, the formation of the gate structures 34, 36, 38 could be accomplished by a gate first process, a high-k first approach from gate last process, or a high-k last approach from gate last process. Since this embodiment pertains to a high-k first approach, a gate dielectric layer 40 or interfacial layer made of silicon oxide, silicon oxynitride (SiON), silicon oxycarbide (SiOC), or silicon oxyfluoride (SiOF), a high-k dielectric layer 42, a gate material layer 44 made of polysilicon, and a selective hard mask 46 could be formed sequentially on the substrate 12, and a pattern transfer process is then conducted by using a patterned resist (not shown) as mask to remove part of the hard mask 46, part of the gate material layer 44, part of the high-k dielectric layer 42, and part of the gate dielectric layer 40 through single or multiple etching processes. After stripping the patterned resist, gate structures 34, 36, 38 each composed of a patterned gate dielectric layer 40, a patterned high-k dielectric layer 42, a patterned gate material layer 44, and a patterned hard mask 46 are formed on the substrate 12.
In this embodiment, the high-k dielectric layer 42 is preferably selected from dielectric materials having dielectric constant (k value) larger than 4. For instance, the high-k dielectric layer 42 may be selected from hafnium oxide (HfO2), hafnium silicon oxide (HfSiO4), hafnium silicon oxynitride (HfSiON), aluminum oxide (Al2O3), lanthanum oxide (La2O3), tantalum oxide (Ta2O5), yttrium oxide (Y2O3), zirconium oxide (ZrO2), strontium titanate oxide (SrTiO3), zirconium silicon oxide (ZrSiO4), hafnium zirconium oxide (HfZrO4), strontium bismuth tantalate (SrBi2Ta2O9, SBT), lead zirconate titanate (PbZrxTi1−xO3, PZT), barium strontium titanate (BaxSr1−xTiO3, BST) or a combination thereof.
Next, at least a spacer (not shown) is formed on the sidewalls of each of the gate structures 34, 36, 38 and then a diffusion region 48 or source/drain regions are formed in the substrate 12 adjacent to one side or two sides of the gate structures 34, 36, 38. In this embodiment, the spacer could be a single spacer or a composite spacer, such as a spacer including but not limited to for example an offset spacer and a main spacer. Preferably, the offset spacer and the main spacer could include same material or different material while both the offset spacer and the main spacer could be made of material including but not limited to for example SiO2, SiN, SiON, SiCN, or combination thereof. The diffusion region 48 or source/drain regions could include n-type dopants or p-type dopants depending on the type of device being fabricated.
Next, referring to
Next, referring to
It should also be noted that even though the gate dielectric layer 40 and high-k dielectric layer 42 are kept on the surface of the substrate 12 between the ends of two gate structures 52, 54 after patterning the gate structure 36 as shown on the right side of
Next, referring to
Next, a replacement metal gate (RMG) process is conducted to transform the gate structures 34, 38, 52, 54 into metal gates. For instance, the RMG process could be accomplished by first conducting a selective dry etching or wet etching process using etchants including but not limited to for example ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH) or tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) to remove the gate material layers 44 from gate structures 34, 38, 52, 54 for forming recesses (not shown) in the ILD layer 60. Next, conductive layers including a work function metal layer 62 and a low resistance metal layer 64 are formed in each of the recesses, and a planarizing process such as CMP is conducted to remove part of low resistance metal layer 64 and part of work function metal layer 62 so that the top surfaces of the U-shaped work function metal layer 62, the low resistance metal layer 64, and the ILD layer 60 are coplanar.
In this embodiment, the work function metal layer 62 is formed for tuning the work function of the metal gate in accordance with the conductivity of the device. For an NMOS transistor, the work function metal layer 62 having a work function ranging between 3.9 eV and 4.3 eV may include titanium aluminide (TiAl), zirconium aluminide (ZrAl), tungsten aluminide (WAl), tantalum aluminide (TaAl), hafnium aluminide (HfAl), or titanium aluminum carbide (TiAlC), but it is not limited thereto. For a PMOS transistor, the work function metal layer 62 having a work function ranging between 4.8 eV and 5.2 eV may include titanium nitride (TiN), tantalum nitride (TaN), tantalum carbide (TaC), but it is not limited thereto. An optional barrier layer (not shown) could be formed between the work function metal layer 62 and the low resistance metal layer 64, in which the material of the barrier layer may include titanium (Ti), titanium nitride (TiN), tantalum (Ta) or tantalum nitride (TaN). Furthermore, the material of the low-resistance metal layer 64 may include copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), titanium aluminum (TiAl), cobalt tungsten phosphide (CoWP) or any combination thereof. Next, part of the work function metal layer 62 and part of the low resistance metal layer 64 are removed to form recesses (not shown), and a hard mask 66 is then formed into each of the recesses so that the top surfaces of the hard masks 66 and the ILD layer 60 are coplanar. The hard mask 66 could be made of material including but not limited to for example SiO2, SiN, SiON, SiCN, or combination thereof.
Next, another ILD layer (not shown) could be formed on the gate structures 34, 38, 52, 54 and the ILD layer 60, and a photo-etching process is conducted by using a patterned mask (not shown) as mask to remove part of the newly formed ILD layer and the ILD layer 60 adjacent to the gate structures 34, 38 for forming contact holes (not shown) exposing the diffusion regions 48. Next, conductive materials including a barrier layer selected from the group consisting of titanium (Ti), titanium nitride (TiN), tantalum (Ta), and tantalum nitride (TaN) and a metal layer selected from the group consisting of tungsten (W), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), titanium aluminide (TiAl), and cobalt tungsten phosphide (CoWP) are deposited into the contact holes, and a planarizing process such as CMP is conducted to remove part of aforementioned conductive materials for forming contact plugs 70 directly contacting the diffusion regions 48. This completes the fabrication of a semiconductor device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Referring again to
As shown in the cross-section view on right side of
Moreover, despite a high-k first approach is conducted for fabricating metal gate transistors in this embodiment, according to other embodiment of the present invention, it would also be desirable to conduct a high-k last approach for fabricating metal gate structures and in such instance, the gate structures 52, 54 shown in right portion of
Referring to
It should be noted that the formation of the diffusion break structure 72 could be accomplished by first forming a patterned mask (not shown) on the substrate 12, conducting an etching process by using the patterned mask as mask to remove part of the substrate 12 for forming a recess extending along a direction perpendicular to the direction of gate structures (not shown) afterwards, and then forming a dielectric material such as silicon oxide or silicon nitride into the recess for forming the diffusion break structure 72. In this embodiment, the STI 32 and the diffusion break structure 72 could be fabricated by same or different process and the STI 32 and the diffusion break structure 72 could also be made of same or different materials, which are all within the scope of the present invention. Since the fabrication of STI and diffusion break structures is well known to those skilled in the art, the details of which are not explained herein for the sake of brevity.
Next, a plurality of gate structures 34, 36, 38 are formed on the substrate 12. As shown in the top view on the left side of
Next, referring to
Next, referring to
Next, a salicide process could be conducted to form a silicide layer 50 on the surface of the substrate 12 adjacent to two sides of the gate structures 34, 38, 52, 54. It should be noted that since the source line in the middle has already been patterned into two portions including the gate structures 52, 54 and a diffusion break structure 72 is disposed in the substrate 12 between the gate structures 52, 54 at this stage, the top surface of the diffusion break structure 72 between the two ends of gate structures 52, 54 would not react with metal to form a silicide layer as the silicide layer 50 is only formed on the surface of the substrate 12 adjacent to two sides of the source line and the word lines.
Next, referring to
Next, a replacement metal gate (RMG) process is conducted to transform the gate structures 34, 38, 52, 54 into metal gates. For instance, the RMG process could be accomplished by first conducting a selective dry etching or wet etching process using etchants including but not limited to for example ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH) or tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) to remove the gate material layers 44 from gate structures 34, 38, 52, 54 for forming recesses (not shown) in the ILD layer 60. Next, conductive layers including a work function metal layer 62 and a low resistance metal layer 64 are formed in each of the recesses, and another planarizing process such as CMP is conducted to remove part of low resistance metal layer 64 and part of work function metal layer 62 so that the top surfaces of the U-shaped work function metal layer 62, the low resistance metal layer 64, and the ILD layer 60 are coplanar. Next, part of the work function metal layer 62 and part of the low resistance metal layer 64 are removed to form recesses (not shown), and a hard mask 66 is then formed into each of the recesses so that the top surfaces of the hard masks 66 and the ILD layer 60 are coplanar. The hard mask 66 could be made of material including but not limited to for example SiO2, SiN, SiON, SiCN, or combination thereof.
Next, another ILD layer (not shown) could be formed on the gate structures 34, 38, 52, 54 and the ILD layer 60, and a photo-etching process is conducted by using a patterned mask (not shown) as mask to remove part of the newly formed ILD layer and the ILD layer 60 adjacent to the gate structures 34, 38 for forming contact holes (not shown) exposing the diffusion regions 48. Next, conductive materials including a barrier layer selected from the group consisting of titanium (Ti), titanium nitride (TiN), tantalum (Ta), and tantalum nitride (TaN) and a metal layer selected from the group consisting of tungsten (W), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), titanium aluminide (TiAl), and cobalt tungsten phosphide (CoWP) are deposited into the contact holes, and a planarizing process such as CMP is conducted to remove part of aforementioned conductive materials for forming contact plugs 70 directly contacting the diffusion regions 48. This completes the fabrication of a semiconductor device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Referring again to
As shown in the cross-section view on right side of
Similar to the aforementioned embodiment, despite a high-k first approach is conducted for fabricating metal gate transistors in this embodiment, according to other embodiment of the present invention, it would also be desirable to conduct a high-k last approach for fabricating metal gate structures and in such instance, the gate structures 52, 54 shown in right portion of
Typically, a patterning or photo-etching process is conducted to divide the source line into two portions such as the gate structures prior to the formation of silicide layer in current fabrication of OTP memory device. Since the surface of the substrate or diffusion region between two ends of the separated source line or gate structures is exposed before the salicide process, a silicide layer would be formed on the surface of the diffusion region not only adjacent to two sides of the source line but also between two ends of the divided source lines during the salicide process. The formation of the silicide layer particularly between the two ends of the divided source lines however would easily affect performance of the OTP memory device. To resolve this issue, the present invention preferably forms a silicide layer on the diffusion region adjacent to two sides of the source line and then conducts a pattern transfer process to divide the source line into two portions such as the gate structures 52, 54 disclosed in the aforementioned embodiment shown in
Moreover, according to another approach of the present invention, it would also be desirable to first form a STI in the substrate along with a diffusion break structure at the place where source line would be divided into gate structures 52, 54 as shown in
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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202110618587.2 | Jun 2021 | CN | national |