Semiconductor device with mask read-only memory and method of fabricating the same

Abstract

A mask read only memory (ROM) device includes a plurality of isolation patterns disposed at predetermined regions of a semiconductor substrate to define a plurality of active regions. The semiconductor substrate includes a mask ROM region where a plurality of on cells and a plurality of off-cells are disposed. The mask ROM further includes a plurality of gate lines disposed over the active regions, and which cross over the isolation patterns, a plurality of gate insulating layers interposed between the gate lines and the active regions and a floating conductive pattern and a inter-gate dielectric pattern located between the gate line and the gate insulating layer of the off-cell.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention can be understood in more detail from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a chip layout pattern of an EML semiconductor device as an example;

FIG. 2 is a sectional diagram showing a conventional method of fabricating a mask ROM;

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram illustrating a cell array of a mask Rom according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 4A through 8A are plane diagrams illustrating a method of fabricating a mask ROM in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 4B through 8B are sectional diagrams illustrating a method of fabricating a mask ROM in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 9A through 13A are plane diagrams illustrating a method of fabricating a mask ROM in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIGS. 9B through 13B are sectional diagrams illustrating a method of fabricating a mask ROM in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Claims

1. A mask read only memory (ROM) device comprising: a plurality of isolation patterns disposed at predetermined regions of a semiconductor substrate to define a plurality of active regions, the semiconductor substrate comprising a mask ROM region where a plurality of on cells and a plurality of off-cells are disposed;a plurality of gate lines disposed over the active regions and which cross over the isolation patterns;a plurality of gate insulating layers interposed between the gate lines and the active regions; anda floating conductive pattern and an inter-gate dielectric pattern located between the gate line and the gate insulating layer of the off-cell.

2. The mask ROM device of claim 1, wherein the gate insulating layer is thicker under the gate line of the off-cell than under the gate line of the on-cell.

3. The mask ROM device of claim 2, wherein the gate insulating layer is formed to a thickness of about 10 Å through about 50 Å under the gate line of the on-cell and is formed in a thickness of about 50 Å through about 400 Å under the gate line of the off-cell.

4. The mask ROM device of claim 1, wherein the floating conductive pattern is electrically isolated from the gate line by the inter-gate dielectric pattern.

5. The mask ROM device of claim 1, wherein the inter-gate dielectric pattern is formed of at least one high-k dielectric layer material selected from the group consisting of metallic oxides, a silicon oxide layer, and a silicon nitride layer.

6. The mask ROM device of claim 1, wherein in the off-cell, the gate line is not greater than the floating conductive pattern in width.

7. A semiconductor device having a mask read only memory (ROM) comprising: a plurality of isolation patterns disposed at predetermined regions of a semiconductor substrate to define a plurality of active regions, the semiconductor substrate comprising a nonvolatile memory area and a mask ROM region where a plurality of on cells and a plurality of off-cells are disposed;a plurality of gate lines disposed over the active regions and which cross over the isolation patterns;a plurality of gate insulating layers interposed between the gate lines and the active regions;a first floating conductive pattern and a first inter-gate dielectric pattern located between the gate line and gate insulating layer of the off-cell; anda second floating conductive pattern and a second inter-gate dielectric pattern located between the gate line and gate insulating layer of the nonvolatile memory area,wherein in the on-cell, the gate line directly contacts the gate insulating layer.

8. The semiconductor device of claim 7, wherein the gate insulating layer is thicker under the gate line of the off-cell than under the gate line of the on-cell.

9. The semiconductor device of claim 8, wherein the gate insulating layer under the gate line of the off-cell includes a part having the same thickness as the gate insulating layer under the gate line of the nonvolatile memory area.

10. The semiconductor device of claim 9, wherein the gate insulating layer is formed to a thickness of about 10 Å through about 50 Å under the gate line of the on-cell and is formed to a thickness of about 50 Å through about 400 Å under the gate lines of the off-cell and the nonvolatile memory area.

11. The semiconductor device of claim 7, wherein the first floating conductive pattern is the same as the second floating conductive pattern with regard to kind of material and to thickness.

12. The semiconductor device of claim 7, wherein the first inter-gate dielectric pattern is the same as the second inter-gate dielectric pattern with regard to kind of material and to a thickness.

13. The semiconductor device of claim 7, wherein the first and second floating conductive patterns are electrically isolated from the gate lines by the first and second inter-gate dielectric patterns.

14. The semiconductor device of claim 7, wherein at least one of the first and second inter-gate dielectric patterns is formed of at least one high-k dielectric layer material selected from the group consisting of metallic oxides, a silicon oxide layer, and a silicon nitride layer.

15. The semiconductor device of claim 7, wherein the gate line of the off-cell is no greater than the first floating conductive pattern in width and the gate line of the nonvolatile memory area is equal to the second floating conductive pattern in width.

16. The semiconductor device of claim 7, wherein the gate insulating layer of the nonvolatile memory area comprises a tunnel region, wherein the gate insulating layer of the tunnel region is thinner than the adjacent region.

17. The semiconductor device of claim 7, further comprising: a plurality of silicon oxide patterns disposed between the first floating conductive pattern and the first inter-gate dielectric pattern and between the second floating conductive pattern and the second inter-gate dielectric pattern to define top edges of the first and second floating conductive patterns in acute angles.

18. A mask read only memory (ROM) device comprising: a semiconductor substrate including a mask ROM cell array including a plurality of on-transistors and a plurality of off-transistors;a plurality of first active regions disposed in predetermined areas of the semiconductor substrate along one direction, the first active regions being used as drain and channel regions of the on and off-transistors;a plurality of second active regions disposed in predetermined areas of the semiconductor substrate along the other direction to connect the first active regions with each other, the second active regions being used as source regions of the on and off-transistors,a plurality of gate lines crossing over the first active regions to serve as gate lines for the on and off-transistors;a plurality of bit lines crossing over the gate lines to connect the drain regions with each other; anda floating conductive pattern and an inter-gate dielectric pattern disposed between the gate line of the off-transistor and the first active region.

19. The mask ROM device of claim 18, further comprising: a plurality of gate insulating layers disposed between the first active regions and the gate lines,wherein the gate insulating layer disposed under the gate line of the off-transistor is interposed between the floating conductive pattern and the first active region.

20. The mask ROM device of claim 19, wherein the gate insulating layer is thicker under the gate line of the off-transistor than under the gate line of the on-transistor.

21. A method of fabricating a mask read only memory (ROM) device, comprising: forming a plurality of isolation patterns in a semiconductor substrate to define a plurality of active regions, the semiconductor substrate comprising a mask ROM region where a plurality of on cells and a plurality of off-cells are disposed;forming a first gate insulation pattern and a floating conductive pattern on the active region of the off-cell to expose the active region of the on-cell;forming a second gate insulating layer on the exposed active region of the on-cell; andforming a plurality of gate lines over the second gate insulating layer of the on-cell and the first floating conductive pattern of the off-cell.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the second gate insulating layer is formed to be thinner than the first gate insulation pattern.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the first gate insulation pattern is formed to a thickness of about 50 Å through about 400 Å, and the second gate insulating layer is formed in a thickness of about 10 Å through about 50 Å.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the forming of the first gate insulation and floating conductive patterns comprises: forming a first gate insulating layer on the active region;forming a first conductive layer on the resultant structure including the first gate insulating layer; andpatterning the first conductive layer and the gate insulating layer to expose the top of the active region of the on-cell.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising: forming an inter-gate dielectric layer on the first conductive layer after forming the first conductive layer, wherein the inter-gate dielectric layer is patterned during the step of patterning of the first conductive layer and the gate insulating layer, to form an inter-gate dielectric pattern disposed between the first floating conductive pattern and the gate line.

26. The method of claim 24, further comprising: forming a silicon oxide pattern on a predetermined region of the first conductive layer after forming the first conductive layer, wherein the silicon oxide pattern is used as an etching mask for defining the first floating conductive pattern and the gate insulation pattern in the step of patterning the first conductive and gate insulating layers.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising: forming a tunnel insulating layer to cover the active region around the first floating conductive pattern, before forming the second gate insulating layer;forming an inter-gate dielectric layer to cover the resultant structure including the tunnel insulating layer; andremoving the inter-gate dielectric layer and the tunnel insulating layer from the mask ROM region.

28. The method of claim 21, wherein the gate line is not greater than the first floating conductive pattern in width.

29. A method of fabricating a semiconductor device, comprising: forming a plurality of isolation patterns in a semiconductor substrate to define a plurality of active regions, the semiconductor substrate comprising a nonvolatile memory area and a mask read only memory (ROM) region where a plurality of on-cells and a plurality of off-cells are disposed;forming a first gate insulation pattern and a floating conductive pattern on the nonvolatile memory area and the active region of the off-cell;forming a second gate insulating layer on the active region around the first floating conductive pattern; andforming a plurality of gate lines on the second gate insulating layer of the on-cell, the first floating conductive pattern of the off-cell and the nonvolatile memory area, the gate lines crossing over the active regions.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the second gate insulating layer is thinner than the first gate insulation pattern.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the first gate insulation pattern is formed to a thickness of about 50 Å through about 400 Å, while the second gate insulating layer is formed to a thickness of about 10 Å through about 50 Å.

32. The method of claim 29, wherein forming the first gate insulation and floating conductive patterns comprises: forming a first gate insulating layer on the active region;forming a first conductive layer on the resultant structure including the first gate insulating layer; andpatterning the first conductive and gate insulating layers to expose the top of the active region of the on-cell.

33. The method of claim 32, further comprising: forming an inter-gate dielectric layer on the first conductive layer after forming the first conductive layer, wherein the inter-gate dielectric layer is patterned during the step of patterning of the first conductive layer and the gate insulating layer to form an inter-gate dielectric pattern disposed between the first floating conductive pattern and the gate line.

34. The method of claim 32, further comprising: forming a silicon oxide pattern on a predetermined region of the first conductive layer after forming the first conductive layer, wherein the silicon oxide pattern is used as an etching mask for defining the first floating conductive pattern and the gate insulation pattern in the step of patterning the first conductive and gate insulating layers.

35. The method of claim 34, further comprising: forming a tunnel insulating layer to cover the active region around the first floating conductive pattern before forming the second gate insulating layer;forming an inter-gate dielectric layer to cover the resultant structure including the tunnel insulating layer; andremoving the inter-gate dielectric layer and the tunnel insulating layer from the mask ROM region.

36. The method of claim 29, wherein in the off-cell, the gate line is not greater than the first floating conductive pattern in width.

37. A method of fabricating a mask read only memory (ROM) device, comprising: forming a plurality of isolation layers in predetermined regions of a semiconductor substrate including a plurality of on cells and a plurality of off-cells to define a plurality of first active regions and a plurality of second active regions, the first active regions being disposed along one direction and the second active regions being disposed along the other direction to connect the first active regions with each other;forming a first gate insulation pattern and a floating conductive pattern on the active region of the off-cell;forming a second gate insulating layer on the first and second active regions around the first floating conductive pattern;forming a gate line crossing over the first active regions and disposed over the second gate insulating layer of the on-cell and the first floating conductive pattern of the off-cell; andforming drain and source regions in the first and second active regions by using the gate lines as an ion implantation mask.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the second gate insulating layer is thinner than the first gate insulation pattern.

39. The method of claim 37, wherein the first and second active regions are formed to intersect each other, wherein the isolation patterns are formed being enclosed by the first and second active regions,wherein the isolation patterns have a longitudinal axis parallel with the first active regions.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein a couple of the gate lines are formed on each of the isolation patterns, wherein the couple of the gate lines are arranged in parallel with the first active regions.