Patent Grant
8405420
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the general field of Integrated Circuit (IC) devices and fabrication methods, and more particularly to multilayer or Three Dimensional Integrated Circuit (3D IC) devices and fabrication methods.
2. Discussion of Background Art
Semiconductor manufacturing is known to improve device density in an exponential manner over time, but such improvements come with a price. The mask set cost required for each new process technology has also been increasing exponentially. While 20 years ago a mask set cost less than $20,000, it is now quite common to be charged more than $1M for today's state of the art device mask set.
These changes represent an increasing challenge primarily to custom products, which tend to target smaller volume and less diverse markets therefore making the increased cost of product development very hard to accommodate.
Custom Integrated Circuits can be segmented into two groups. The first group includes devices that have all their layers custom made. The second group includes devices that have at least some generic layers used across different custom products. Well-known examples of the second kind are Gate Arrays, which use generic layers for all layers up to a contact layer that couples the silicon devices to the metal conductors, and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices where all the layers are generic. The generic layers in such devices are mostly a repeating pattern structure in an array form.
The logic array technology is based on a generic fabric that is customized for a specific design during the customization stage. For an FPGA the customization is done through programming by electrical signals. For Gate Arrays, which in their modern form are sometimes called Structured Application Specific Integrated Circuits (or Structured ASICs), the customization is by at least one custom layer, which might be done with Direct Write eBeam or with a custom mask. As designs tend to be highly variable in the amount of logic and memory and type of input & output (I/O) each one needs, vendors of logic arrays create product families with a number of Master Slices covering a range of logic, memory size and I/O options. Yet, it is always a challenge to come up with minimum set of Master Slices that will provide a good fit for the maximal number of designs because it is quite costly if a dedicated mask set is required for each Master Slice.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,288 issued to Sato in March 1988 (“Sato”), discloses a method “to provide a gate-array LSI chip which can be cut into a plurality of chips, each of the chips having a desired size and a desired number of gates in accordance with a circuit design.” The references cited in Sato present a few alternative methods to utilize a generic structure for different sizes of custom devices.
The array structure fits the objective of variable sizing. The difficulty to provide variable-sized array structure devices is due to the need of providing I/O cells and associated pads to connect the device to the package. To overcome this limitation Sato suggests a method where I/O could be constructed from the transistors that are also used for the general logic gates. Anderson also suggested a similar approach. U.S. Pat. No. 5,217,916 issued to Anderson et al. on Jun. 8, 1993, discloses a borderless configurable gate array free of predefined boundaries using transistor gate cells, of the same type of cells used for logic, to serve the input and output function. Accordingly, the input and output functions may be placed to surround the logic array sized for the specific application. This method places a severe limitation on the I/O cell to use the same type of transistors as used for the logic and; hence, would not allow the use of higher operating voltages for the I/O.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,105,871 issued to Or-Bach et al. on Sep. 12, 2006, discloses a semiconductor device that includes a borderless logic array and area I/Os. The logic array may comprise a repeating core, and at least one of the area I/Os may be a configurable I/O.
In the past it was reasonable to design an I/O cell that could be configured to the various needs of most customers. The ever increasing need of higher data transfer rate in and out of the device drove the development of special serial I/O circuits called SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer) transceivers. These circuits are complex and require a far larger silicon area than conventional I/Os. Consequently, the variations needed are combinations of various amounts of logic, various amounts and types of memories, and various amounts and types of I/O. This implies that even the use of the borderless logic array of the prior art will still require multiple expensive mask sets.
The most common FPGAs in the market today are based on Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) as the programming element. Floating-Gate Flash programmable elements are also utilized to some extent. Less commonly, FPGAs use an antifuse as the programming element. The first generation of antifuse FPGAs used antifuses that were built directly in contact with the silicon substrate itself. The second generation moved the antifuse to the metal layers to utilize what is called the Metal to Metal Antifuse. These antifuses function like programmable vias. However, unlike vias that are made with the same metal that is used for the interconnection, these antifuses generally use amorphous silicon and some additional interface layers. While in theory antifuse technology could support a higher density than SRAM, the SRAM FPGAs are dominating the market today. In fact, it seems that no one is advancing Antifuse FPGA devices anymore. One of the severe disadvantages of antifuse technology has been their lack of re-programmability. Another disadvantage has been the special silicon manufacturing process required for the antifuse technology which results in extra development costs and the associated time lag with respect to baseline IC technology scaling.
The general disadvantage of common FPGA technologies is their relatively poor use of silicon area. While the end customer only cares to have the device perform his desired function, the need to program the FPGA to any function requires the use of a very significant portion of the silicon area for the programming and programming check functions.
Some embodiments of the current invention seek to overcome the prior-art limitations and provide some additional benefits by making use of special types of transistors that are fabricated above or below the antifuse configurable interconnect circuits and thereby allow far better use of the silicon area.
One type of such transistors is commonly known in the art as Thin Film Transistors or TFT. Thin Film Transistors has been proposed and used for over three decades. One of the better-known usages has been for displays where the TFT are fabricated on top of the glass used for the display. Other type of transistors that could be fabricated above the antifuse configurable interconnect circuits are called Vacuum Field Effect Transistor (FET) and was introduced three decades ago such as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,721,885.
Other techniques could also be used such as employing Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology. In U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,355,501 and 6,821,826, both assigned to IBM, a multilayer three-dimensional Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) Integrated Circuit is proposed. It suggests bonding an additional thin SOI wafer on top of another SOI wafer forming an integrated circuit on top of another integrated circuit and connecting them by the use of a through-silicon-via. Substrate supplier Soitec SA, of Bernin, France is now offering a technology for stacking of a thin layer of a processed wafer on top of a base wafer.
Integrating top layer transistors above an insulation layer is not common in an IC because the quality and density of prior art top layer transistors are inferior to those formed in the base (or substrate) layer. The substrate may be formed of crystallized silicon and may be ideal for producing high density and high quality transistors, and hence preferable. There are some applications where it has been suggested to build memory cells using such transistors as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,815,781, 7,446,563 and a portion of an SRAM based FPGA such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,515,511 and 7,265,421.
Embodiments of the current invention seek to take advantage of the top layer transistor to provide a much higher density antifuse-based programmable logic. An additional advantage for such use will be the option to further reduce cost in high volume production by utilizing custom mask(s) to replace the antifuse function, thereby eliminating the top layer(s) anti-fuse programming logic altogether.
Additionally some embodiments of the invention may provide innovative alternatives for multi layer 3D IC technology. As on-chip interconnects are becoming the limiting factor for performance and power enhancement with device scaling, 3D IC may be an important technology for future generations of ICs. Currently the only viable technology for 3D IC is to finish the IC by the use of Through-Silicon-Via (TSV). The problem with TSVs is that they are relatively large (a few microns each in area) and therefore may lead to highly limited vertical connectivity. The current invention may provide multiple alternatives for 3D IC with an order of magnitude improvement in vertical connectivity.
Additionally the 3D technology according to some embodiments of the current invention may enable some very innovative IC alternatives with reduced development costs, increased yield, and other important benefits.
Embodiments of the present invention seek to provide a new method for semiconductor device fabrication that may be highly desirable for custom products. Embodiments of the current invention suggest the use of a Re-programmable antifuse in conjunction with ‘Through Silicon Via’ to construct a new type of configurable logic, or as usually called, FPGA devices. Embodiments of the current invention may provide a solution to the challenge of high mask-set cost and low flexibility that exists in the current common methods of semiconductor fabrication. An additional advantage of some embodiments of the invention is that it could reduce the high cost of manufacturing the many different mask sets required in order to provide a commercially viable range of master slices. Embodiments of the current invention may improve upon the prior art in many respects, which may include the way the semiconductor device is structured and methods related to the fabrication of semiconductor devices.
Embodiments of the current invention reflect the motivation to save on the cost of masks with respect to the investment that would otherwise have been required to put in place a commercially viable set of master slices. Embodiments of the current invention also seek to provide the ability to incorporate various types of memory blocks in the configurable device. Embodiments of the current invention provide a method to construct a configurable device with the desired amount of logic, memory, I/Os, and analog functions.
In addition, embodiments of the current invention allow the use of repeating logic tiles that provide a continuous terrain of logic. Embodiments of the current invention show that with Through-Silicon-Via (TSV) a modular approach could be used to construct various configurable systems. Once a standard size and location of TSV has been defined one could build various configurable logic dies, configurable memory dies, configurable I/O dies and configurable analog dies which could be connected together to construct various configurable systems. In fact it may allow mix and match between configurable dies, fixed function dies, and dies manufactured in different processes.
Embodiments of the current invention seek to provide additional benefits by making use of special type of transistors that are placed above or below the antifuse configurable interconnect circuits and thereby allow a far better use of the silicon area. In general an FPGA device that utilizes antifuses to configure the device function may include the electronic circuits to program the antifuses. The programming circuits may be used primarily to configure the device and are mostly an overhead once the device is configured. The programming voltage used to program the antifuse may typically be significantly higher than the voltage used for the operating circuits of the device. The design of the antifuse structure may be designed such that an unused antifuse will not accidentally get fused. Accordingly, the incorporation of the antifuse programming in the silicon substrate may require special attention for this higher voltage, and additional silicon area may, accordingly, be required.
Unlike the operating transistors that are desired to operate as fast as possible, to enable fast system performance, the programming circuits could operate relatively slowly. Accordingly using a thin film transistor for the programming circuits could fit very well with the required function and would reduce the required silicon area.
The programming circuits may, therefore, be constructed with thin film transistors, which may be fabricated after the fabrication of the operating circuitry, on top of the configurable interconnection layers that incorporate and use the antifuses. An additional advantage of such embodiments of the invention is the ability to reduce cost of the high volume production. One may only need to use mask-defined links instead of the antifuses and their programming circuits. This will in most cases require one custom via mask, and this may save steps associated with the fabrication of the antifuse layers, the thin film transistors, and/or the associated connection layers of the programming circuitry.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention an Integrated Circuit device is thus provided, comprising; a plurality of antifuse configurable interconnect circuits and plurality of transistors to configure at least one of said antifuse; wherein said transistors are fabricated after said antifuse.
Further provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention is an Integrated Circuit device comprising; a plurality of antifuse configurable interconnect circuits and plurality of transistors to configure at least one of said antifuse; wherein said transistors are placed over said antifuse.
Still further in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the Integrated Circuit device comprises second antifuse configurable logic cells and plurality of second transistors to configure said second antifuse wherein these second transistors are fabricated before said second antifuse.
Still further in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the Integrated Circuit device comprises also second antifuse configurable logic cells and a plurality of second transistors to configure said second antifuse wherein said second transistors are placed underneath said second antifuse.
Further provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention is an Integrated Circuit device comprising; first antifuse layer, at least two metal layers over it and a second antifuse layer over this two metal layers.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention a configurable logic device is presented, comprising: antifuse configurable look up table logic interconnected by antifuse configurable interconnect.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention a configurable logic device is also provided, comprising: plurality of configurable look up table logic, plurality of configurable programmable logic array (PLA) logic, and plurality of antifuse configurable interconnect.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention a configurable logic device is also provided, comprising: plurality of configurable look up table logic and plurality of configurable drive cells wherein the drive cells are configured by plurality of antifuses.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention a configurable logic device is additionally provided, comprising: configurable logic cells interconnected by a plurality of antifuse configurable interconnect circuits wherein at least one of the antifuse configurable interconnect circuits is configured as part of a non volatile memory.
Further in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the configurable logic device comprises at least one antifuse configurable interconnect circuit, which is also configurable to a PLA function.
In accordance with an alternative embodiment of the present invention an integrated circuit system is also provided, comprising a configurable logic die and an I/O die wherein the configurable logic die is connected to the I/O die by the use of Through-Silicon-Via.
Further in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the integrated circuit system comprises; a configurable logic die and a memory die wherein these dies are connected by the use of Through-Silicon-Via.
Still further in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the integrated circuit system comprises a first configurable logic die and second configurable logic die wherein the first configurable logic die and the second configurable logic die are connected by the use of Through-Silicon-Via.
Moreover in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the integrated circuit system comprises an I/O die that was fabricated utilizing a different process than the process utilized to fabricate the configurable logic die.
Further in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the integrated circuit system comprises at least two logic dies connected by the use of Through-Silicon-Via and wherein some of the Through-Silicon-Vias are utilized to carry the system bus signal.
Moreover in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the integrated circuit system comprises at least one configurable logic device.
Further in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention the integrated circuit system comprises, an antifuse configurable logic die and programmer die and these dies are connected by the use of Through-Silicon-Via.
Additionally there is a growing need to reduce the impact of inter-chip interconnects. In fact interconnects are now dominating IC performance and power. One solution to shorten interconnect may be to use 3D IC. Currently, the only known way for general logic 3D IC is to integrate finished device one on top of the other by utilizing Through-Silicon-Vias as now called TSVs. The problem with TSVs is that their large size, usually a few microns each, may lead to severely limitations. Some embodiments of the current invention may provide multiple alternatives to constructing 3D IC wherein many connections may be made less than one micron in size, thus enabling the use of 3D IC for most device applications.
Additionally some embodiments of this invention may offer new device alternatives by utilizing the proposed 3D IC technology.
Various embodiments of the present invention will be understood and appreciated more fully from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the drawings in which:
Embodiments of the present invention are now described with reference to the drawing figures. Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the description and figures illustrate rather than limit the invention and that in general the figures are not drawn to scale for clarity of presentation. Such skilled persons will also realize that many more embodiments are possible by applying the inventive principles contained herein and that such embodiments fall within the scope of the invention which is not to be limited except by the appended claims.
304 is one of the Y programming transistors connected to strip 310-1. 318 is one of the X programming transistors connected to strip 308-4. 302 is the Y select logic which at the programming phase allows the selection of a Y programming transistor. 316 is the X select logic which at the programming phase allows the selection of an X programming transistor. Once 304 and 318 are selected the programming voltage 306 will be applied to strip 310-1 while strip 308-4 will be grounded causing the antifuse 312-4 to be activated.
Unlike the prior art, various embodiments of the current invention suggest constructing the programming transistors not in the base silicon diffusion layer but rather above or below the antifuse configurable interconnect circuits. The programming voltage used to program the antifuse is typically significantly higher than the voltage used for the operational circuits of the device. This is part of the design of the antifuse structure so that the antifuse will not become accidentally activated. In addition, extra attention, design effort, and silicon resources might be needed to make sure that the programming phase will not damage the operating circuits. Accordingly the incorporation of the antifuse programming transistors in the silicon substrate may require attention and extra silicon area.
Unlike the operational transistors that are desired to operate as fast as possible and so to enable fast system performance, the programming circuits could operate relatively slowly. Accordingly, a thin film transistor for the programming circuits could fit the required function and could reduce the require silicon area.
Alternatively other type of transistors, such as Vacuum FET, bipolar, etc., could be used for the programming circuits and may be placed not in the base silicon but rather above or below the antifuse configurable interconnect.
Yet in another alternative the programming transistors and the programming circuits could be fabricated on SOI wafers which may then be bonded to the configurable logic wafer and connected to it by the use of through—silicon-via. An advantage of using an SOI wafer for the antifuse programming function is that the high voltage transistors that could be built on it are very efficient and could be used for the programming circuit including support function such as the programming controller function. Yet as an additional variation, the programming circuits could be fabricated on an older process on SOI wafers to further reduce cost. Or some other process technology and/or wafer fab located anywhere in the world.
Also there are advanced technologies to deposit silicon or other semiconductors layers that could be integrated on top of the antifuse configurable interconnect for the construction of the antifuse programming circuit. As an example, a recent technology proposed the use of a plasma gun to spray semiconductor grade silicon to form semiconductor structures including, for example, a p-n junction. The sprayed silicon may be doped to the respective semiconductor type. In addition there are more and more techniques to use graphene and Carbon Nano Tubes (CNT) to perform a semiconductor function. For the purpose of this invention we will use the term “Thin-Film-Transistors” as general name for all those technologies, as well as any similar technologies, known or yet to be discovered.
A common objective is to reduce cost for high volume production without redesign and with minimal additional mask cost. The use of thin-film-transistors, for the programming transistors, enables a relatively simple and direct volume cost reduction. Instead of embedding antifuses in the isolation layer a custom mask could be used to define vias on all the locations that used to have their respective antifuse activated. Accordingly the same connection between the strips that used to be programmed is now connected by fixed vias. This may allow saving the cost associated with the fabrication of the antifuse programming layers and their programming circuits. It should be noted that there might be differences between the antifuse resistance and the mask defined via resistance. A conventional way to handle it is by providing the simulation models for both options so the designer could validate that the design will work properly in both cases.
An additional objective for having the programming circuits above the antifuse layer is to achieve better circuit density. Many connections are needed to connect the programming transistors to their respective metal strips. If those connections are going upward they could reduce the circuit overhead by not blocking interconnection routes on the connection layers underneath.
While
The configurable interconnection structure function may be used to interconnect the output of logic cells to the input of logic cells to construct the desired semi-custom logic. The logic cells themselves are constructed by utilizing the first few metal layers to connect transistors that are built in the silicon substrate. Usually the metal 1 layer and metal 2 layer are used for the construction of the logic cells. Sometimes it is effective to also use metal 3 or a part of it.
The logic cells presented in
The device fabrication of the example shown in
The following few layers 806 could comprise long interconnection tracks for power distribution and clock networks, or a portion of these, in addition to what was fabricated in the first few layers 804.
The following few layers 807 could comprise the antifuse configurable interconnection fabric. It might be called the short interconnection fabric, too. If metal 6 and metal 7 are used for the strips of this configurable interconnection fabric then the second antifuse may be embedded in the dielectric layer between metal 6 and metal 7.
The programming transistors and the other parts of the programming circuit could be fabricated afterward and be on top of the configurable interconnection fabric 810. The programming element could be a thin film transistor or other alternatives for over oxide transistors as was mentioned previously. In such case the antifuse programming transistors are placed over the antifuse layer, which may thereby enable the configurable interconnect 808 or 804. It should be noted that in some cases it might be useful to construct part of the control logic for the second antifuse programming circuits, in the base layers 802 and 804.
The final step is the connection to the outside 812. These could be pads for wire bonding, soldering balls for flip chip, optical, or other connection structures such as those required for TSV.
In another alternative of the current invention the antifuse programmable interconnect structure could be designed for multiple use. The same structure could be used as a part of the interconnection fabric, or as a part of the PLA logic cell, or as part of a Read Only Memory (ROM) function. In an FPGA product it might be desirable to have an element that could be used for multiple purposes. Having resources that could be used for multiple functions could increase the utility of the FPGA device.
The reference 808 in subsequent figures can be any one of a vast number of combinations of possible preprocessed wafers or layers containing many combinations of transfer layers that fall within the scope of the invention. The term “preprocessed wafer or layer” may be generic and reference number 808 when used in a drawing figure to illustrate an embodiment of the present invention may represent many different preprocessed wafer or layer types including but not limited to underlying prefabricated layers, a lower layer interconnect wiring, a base layer, a substrate layer, a processed house wafer, an acceptor wafer, a logic house wafer, an acceptor wafer house, preprocessed circuitry, a preprocessed circuitry acceptor wafer, a base wafer layer, a lower layer, an underlying main wafer, a foundation layer, an attic layer, or a house wafer.
This layer transfer process can be repeated many times, thereby creating preprocessed wafers comprising many different transfer layers which, when combined, can then become preprocessed wafers or layers for future transfers. This layer transfer process may be sufficiently flexible and preprocessed wafers and transfer layers, if properly prepared, can be flipped over and processed on either side with further transfers in either direction as a matter of design choice.
Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the illustrations in
An alternative technology for such underlying circuitry is to use the “SmartCut” process. The “SmartCut” process is a well understood technology used for fabrication of SOI wafers. The “SmartCut” process, together with wafer bonding technology, enables a “Layer Transfer” whereby a thin layer of a silicon wafer is transferred from one wafer to another wafer. The “Layer Transfer” could be done at less than 400° C. and the resultant transferred layer could be even less than 100 nm thick. The process with some variations and under different names is commercially available by two companies, namely, Soitec (Crolles, France) and SiGen—Silicon Genesis Corporation (San Jose, Calif.). A room temperature wafer bonding process utilizing ion-beam preparation of the wafer surfaces in a vacuum has been recently demonstrated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Tokyo, Japan. This process allows room temperature layer transfer.
Alternatively, other technologies may be utilized for layer transfer as described in, for example, IBM's layer transfer method shown at IEDM 2005 by A. W. Topol, et. al. The IBM's layer transfer method employs a SOI technology and utilizes glass handle wafers. The donor circuit may be high-temperature processed on an SOI wafer, temporarily bonded to a borosilicate glass handle wafer, backside thinned by chemical mechanical polishing of the silicon and then the Buried Oxide (BOX) is selectively etched off. The now thinned donor wafer is subsequently aligned and low-temperature oxide-to-oxide bonded to the acceptor wafer topside. A low temperature release of the glass handle wafer from the thinned donor wafer is performed, and then thru bond via connections are made. Additionally, epitaxial liftoff (ELO) technology as shown by P. Demeester, et. al, of IMEC in Semiconductor Science Technology 1993 may be utilized for layer transfer. ELO makes use of the selective removal of a very thin sacrificial layer between the substrate and the layer structure to be transferred. The to-be-transferred layer of GaAs or silicon may be adhesively ‘rolled’ up on a cylinder or removed from the substrate by utilizing a flexible carrier, such as, for example, black wax, to bow up the to-be-transferred layer structure when the selective etch, such as, for example, diluted Hydrofluoric (HF) Acid, etches the exposed release layer, such as, for example, silicon oxide in SOI or AlAs. After liftoff, the transferred layer is then aligned and bonded to the desired acceptor substrate or wafer. The manufacturability of the ELO process for multilayer layer transfer use was recently improved by J. Yoon, et. al., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as described in Nature May 20, 2010. Canon developed a layer transfer technology called ELTRAN—Epitaxial Layer TRaNsfer from porous silicon. ELTRAN may be utilized. The Electrochemical Society Meeting abstract No. 438 from year 2000 and the JSAP International July 2001 paper show a seed wafer being anodized in an HF/ethanol solution to create pores in the top layer of silicon, the pores are treated with a low temperature oxidation and then high temperature hydrogen annealed to seal the pores. Epitaxial silicon may then be deposited on top of the porous silicon and then oxidized to form the SOI BOX. The seed wafer may be bonded to a handle wafer and the seed wafer may be split off by high pressure water directed at the porous silicon layer. The porous silicon may then be selectively etched off leaving a uniform silicon layer.
Now that a “layer transfer” process is used to bond a thin crystallized silicon layer 1404 on top of the preprocessed wafer 1402, a standard process could ensue to construct the rest of the desired circuits as is illustrated in
An additional alternative embodiment of the invention is where the foundation layer 1402 is pre-processed to carry a plurality of back bias voltage generators. A known challenge in advanced semiconductor logic devices is die-to-die and within-a-die parameter variations. Various sites within the die might have different electrical characteristics due to dopant variations and such. The most critical of these parameters that affect the variation is the threshold voltage of the transistor. Threshold voltage variability across the die is mainly due to channel dopant, gate dielectric, and critical dimension variability. This variation becomes profound in sub 45 nm node devices. The usual implication is that the design should be done for the worst case, resulting in a quite significant performance penalty. Alternatively complete new designs of devices are being proposed to solve this variability problem with significant uncertainty in yield and cost. A possible solution is to use localized back bias to drive upward the performance of the worst zones and allow better overall performance with minimal additional power. The foundation-located back bias could also be used to minimize leakage due to process variation.
In another alternative the foundation substrate 1402 could additionally carry SRAM cells as illustrated in
An additional embodiment of the present invention may be to use TSVs in the foundation such as TSV 19B10 to connect between wafers to form 3D Integrated Systems. In general each TSV takes a relatively large area, typically a few square microns. When the need is for many TSVs, the overall cost of the required area for these TSVs might be high if the use of that area for high density transistors is precluded. Pre-processing these TSVs on the donor wafer on a relatively older process line will significantly reduce the effective costs of the 3D TSV connections. The connection 1924 to the primary silicon circuitry 1920 could be then made at the minimum contact size of few tens of square nanometers, which is two orders of magnitude lower than the few square microns required by the TSVs. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that
In
Alternatively the Foundation vias 19D22 could be used to pass the processor I/O and power to the substrate 19D04 and to the interposer 19D06 while the DRAM stack would be coupled directly to the processor active area 19D14. Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many more combinations are possible within the scope of the disclosed invention.
In yet another embodiment, custom SOI wafers are used where NuVias 19F00 may be processed by the wafer supplier. NuVias 19F00 may be conventional TSVs that may be 1 micron or larger in diameter and may be preprocessed by an SOI wafer vendor. This is illustrated in
A process flow as illustrated in
In another embodiment of the present invention the foundation substrate 1402 could additionally carry re-drive cells (often called buffers). Re-drive cells are common in the industry for signals which is routed over a relatively long path. As the routing has a severe resistance and capacitance penalty it is helpful to insert re-drive circuits along the path to avoid a severe degradation of signal timing and shape. An advantage of having re-drivers in the foundation 1402 is that these re-drivers could be constructed from transistors who could withstand the programming voltage. Otherwise isolation transistors such as 1601 and 1602 or other isolation scheme may be used at the logic cell input and output.
There are a few alternative methods to construct the top transistors precisely aligned to the underlying pre-fabricated layers such as pre-processed wafer or layer 808, utilizing “SmartCut” layer transfer and not exceeding the temperature limit of the underlying pre-fabricated structure. As the layer transfer is less than 200 nm thick, then the transistors defined on it could be aligned precisely to the top metal layer of the pre-processed wafer or layer 808 as required and those transistors have less than 40 nm misalignment.
One alternative method is to have a thin layer transfer of single crystal silicon which will be used for epitaxial Ge crystal growth using the transferred layer as the seed for the germanium. Another alternative method is to use the thin layer transfer of crystallized silicon for epitaxial growth of GexSi1-x. The percent Ge in Silicon of such layer would be determined by the transistor specifications of the circuitry. Prior art have presented approaches whereby the base silicon is used to epi-crystallize the germanium on top of the oxide by using holes in the oxide to drive seeding from the underlying silicon crystal. However, it is very hard to do such on top of multiple interconnection layers. By using layer transfer we can have the silicon crystal on top and make it relatively easy to seed and epi-crystallize an overlying germanium layer. Amorphous germanium could be conformally deposited by CVD at 300° C. and pattern aligned to the underlying layer, such as the pre-processed wafer or layer 808, and then encapsulated by a low temperature oxide. A short μs-duration heat pulse melts the Ge layer while keeping the underlying structure below 400° C. The Ge/Si interface will start the epi-growth to crystallize the germanium or GexSi1-x layer. Then implants are made to form Ge transistors and activated by laser pulses without damaging the underlying structure taking advantage of the low melting temperature of germanium.
Another alternative method is to preprocess the wafer used for layer transfer as illustrated in
Finally a thick oxide 22G02 may be deposited and contact openings may be masked and etched preparing the transistors to be connected as illustrated in
According to some embodiments of the current invention, during a normal fabrication of the device layers as illustrated in
An additional aspect of this technique for forming top transistors is the size of the via used to connect the top transistors 22G20 to the metal layers in pre-processed wafer and layer 808 underneath. The general rule of thumb is that the size of a via should be larger than one tenth the thickness of the layer that the via is going through. Since the thickness of the layers in the structures presented in
Another alternative for forming the planar top transistors with source and drain extensions is to process the prepared wafer of
Alternatively, a high-k metal gate structure may be formed as follows. Following an industry standard HF/SC1/SC2 cleaning to create an atomically smooth surface, a high-k dielectric 29E02 is deposited. The semiconductor industry has chosen Hafnium-based dielectrics as the leading material of choice to replace SiO2 and Silicon oxynitride. The Hafnium-based family of dielectrics includes hafnium oxide and hafnium silicate/hafnium silicon oxynitride. Hafnium oxide, HfO2, has a dielectric constant twice as much as that of hafnium silicate/hafnium silicon oxynitride (HfSiO/HfSiON k˜15). The choice of the metal is critical for the device to perform properly. A metal replacing N+ poly as the gate electrode needs to have a work function of approximately 4.2 eV for the device to operate properly and at the right threshold voltage. Alternatively, a metal replacing P+ poly as the gate electrode needs to have a work function of approximately 5.2 eV to operate properly. The TiAl and TiAlN based family of metals, for example, could be used to tune the work function of the metal from 4.2 eV to 5.2 eV.
Finally a thick oxide 29G02 is deposited and contact openings are masked and etched preparing the transistors to be connected as illustrated in
Another alternative method is to preprocess the wafer used for layer transfer as illustrated in
Another variation of the previous flow could be in utilizing a transistor technology called pseudo-MOSFET utilizing a molecular monolayer that is covalently grafted onto the channel region between the drain and source. This is a process that can be done at relatively low temperatures (less than 400° C.).
Another variation is to preprocess the wafer used for layer transfer as illustrated in
Another alternative is to preprocess the wafer used for layer transfer as illustrated in
The bipolar transistors formed with reference to
Another class of devices that may be constructed partly at high temperature before layer transfer to a substrate with metal interconnects and then completed at low temperature after layer transfer is a junction-less transistor. For example, in deep sub micron processes copper metallization is utilized, so a high temperature would be above approximately 400° C., whereby a low temperature would be approximately 400° C. and below. The junction-less transistor structure avoids the sharply graded junctions required as silicon technology scales, and provides the ability to have a thicker gate oxide for an equivalent performance when compared to a traditional MOSFET transistor. The junction-less transistor is also known as a nanowire transistor without junctions, or gated resistor, or nanowire transistor as described in a paper by Jean-Pierre Colinge, et. al., published in Nature Nanotechnology on Feb. 21, 2010. The junction-less transistors may be constructed whereby the transistor channel is a thin solid piece of evenly and heavily doped single crystal silicon. The doping concentration of the channel may be identical to that of the source and drain. The considerations may include the nanowire channel must be thin and narrow enough to allow for full depletion of the carriers when the device is turned off, and the channel doping must be high enough to allow a reasonable current to flow when the device is on. These considerations may lead to tight process variation boundaries for channel thickness, width, and doping for a reasonably obtainable gate work function and gate oxide thickness.
One of the challenges of a junction-less transistor device is turning the channel off with minimal leakage at a zero gate bias. To enhance gate control over the transistor channel, the channel may be doped unevenly; whereby the heaviest doping is closest to the gate or gates and the channel doping is lighter the farther away from the gate electrode. One example would be where the center of a 2, 3, or 4 gate sided junction-less transistor channel is more lightly doped than the edges. This may enable much lower off currents for the same gate work function and control.
The junction-less transistor channel may be constructed with even, graded, or discrete layers of doping. The channel may be constructed with materials other than doped single crystal silicon, such as polysilicon, or other semi-conducting, insulating, or conducting material, and may be in combination with other layers of similar or different material. For example, the center of the channel may comprise a layer of oxide, or of lightly doped silicon, and the edges more heavily doped single crystal silicon. This may enhance the gate control effectiveness for the off state of the resistor, and may also increase the on-current due to strain effects on the other layer or layers in the channel. Strain techniques may also be employed from covering and insulator material above, below, and surrounding the transistor channel and gate. Lattice modifiers may also be employed to strain the silicon, such as an embedded SiGe implantation and anneal. The cross section of the transistor channel may be rectangular, circular, or oval shaped, to enhance the gate control of the channel. Alternatively, to optimize the mobility of the P-channel junction-less transistor in the 3D layer transfer method, the donor wafer may be rotated 90 degrees with respect to the acceptor wafer prior to bonding to facilitate the creation of the P-channel in the <110> silicon plane direction.
To construct an n-type 4-sided gate junction-less transistor a silicon wafer is preprocessed to be used for layer transfer as illustrated in
Alternatively, the wafer that becomes the bottom wafer in
As illustrated in
In
The contacts are masked and etched as illustrated in
As illustrated in
Alternatively, an n-type 3-sided gate junction-less transistor may be constructed as illustrated in
A thin oxide may be grown to protect the thin transistor silicon 5704 layer top, and then the transistor channel elements 5708 are masked and etched as illustrated in
Then deposition of a low temperature gate material 5712, such as doped or undoped amorphous silicon as illustrated in
Then the entire structure may be covered with a Low Temperature Oxide 5716, the oxide planarized with chemical mechanical polishing, and then contacts and metal interconnects may be masked and etched as illustrated
Alternatively, an n-type 3-sided gate thin-side-up junction-less transistor may be constructed as follows in
The transistor channel elements 5808 are masked and etched as illustrated in
Alternatively, a two layer n-type 3-sided gate junction-less transistor may be constructed as shown in
The acceptor wafer or house 808 with logic transistors and metal interconnects is prepared for a low temperature oxide-to-oxide wafer bond with surface treatments of the top oxide and the two are bonded as illustrated in
The source and drain connection areas may be masked, the silicon nitride 6105 layer may be etched, and the photoresist may be stripped. A partial or full silicon plasma etch may be performed, or a low temperature oxidation and then Hydrofluoric Acid etch of the oxide may be performed, to thin layer 6103.
The exposed silicon remaining on layer 6104, as illustrated in
A low temperature based Gate Dielectric may be deposited and densified to serve as the junction-less transistor gate oxide 6110 as illustrated in
The gate material 6112 may then be masked and etched to define the top and side gates 6114 of the transistor channel elements 6108 in a crossing manner, generally orthogonally, as illustrated in
Then contacts and metal interconnects may be masked and etched as illustrated
Alternatively, a 1-sided gate junction-less transistor can be constructed as shown in
A family of vertical devices can also be constructed as top transistors that are precisely aligned to the underlying pre-fabricated acceptor wafer or house 808. These vertical devices have implanted and annealed single crystal silicon layers in the transistor by utilizing the “SmartCut” layer transfer process that does not exceed the temperature limit of the underlying pre-fabricated structure. For example, vertical style MOSFET transistors, floating gate flash transistors, floating body DRAM, thyristor, bipolar, and Schottky gated JFET transistors, as well as memory devices, can be constructed. Junction-less transistors may also be constructed in a similar manner. The gates of the vertical transistors or resistors may be controlled by memory or logic elements such as MOSFET, DRAM, SRAM, floating flash, anti-fuse, floating body devices, etc. that are in layers above or below the vertical device, or in the same layer. As an example, a vertical gate-all-around n-MOSFET transistor construction is described below.
The donor wafer preprocessed for the general layer transfer process is illustrated in
As shown in
The area between the towers is partially filled with oxide 4010 via a Spin On Glass (SPG) spin, cure, and etch back sequence as illustrated in
Next, the sidewall gate oxide 4014 is formed by a low temperature microwave oxidation technique, such as the TEL SPA (Tokyo Electron Limited Slot Plane Antenna) oxygen radical plasma, stripped by wet chemicals such as dilute HF, and grown again 4014 as illustrated in
The gate electrode is then deposited, such as a conformal doped amorphous silicon layer 4018, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
In
The metal lines 4040 are mask defined and etched, filled with barrier metals and copper interconnect, and CMP'd in a normal interconnect scheme, thereby completing the contact via connections to the tower N+ 3904 and the gate electrode 4024 as illustrated in
This flow enables the formation of fully crystallized silicon top MOS transistors that are connected to the underlying multi-metal layer semiconductor device without exposing the underlying devices and interconnect metals to high temperature. These transistors could be used as programming transistors of the Antifuse on layer 807, or be coupled to metal layers in wafer or layer 808 to form monolithic 3D ICs, as a pass transistor for logic on wafer or layer 808, or FPGA use, or for additional uses in a 3D semiconductor device.
Additionally, a vertical gate all around junction-less transistor may be constructed as illustrated in
The acceptor wafer or house 808 is also prepared with an oxide pre-clean and deposition of a conductive barrier layer 5416 and Al and Ge layers to form a Ge—Al eutectic bond 5414 during a thermo-compressive wafer to wafer bonding as part of the layer-transfer-flow, thereby transferring the pre-processed single crystal silicon of
Similarly,
The area between the towers is then partially filled with oxide 5510 via a Spin On Glass (SPG) spin, low temperature cure, and etch back sequence as illustrated in
Next, the sidewall gate oxide 5514 is formed by a low temperature microwave oxidation technique, such as the TEL SPA (Tokyo Electron Limited Slot Plane Antenna) oxygen radical plasma, stripped by wet chemicals such as dilute HF, and grown again 5514 as illustrated in
The gate electrode is then deposited, such as a P+ doped amorphous silicon layer 5518, then Chemically Mechanically Polished (CMP'ed) flat, and then selectively etched back to achieve the shape 5518 as shown in
The gate layer 5518 is etched such that the gate layer is fully cleared from between the towers and then the photoresist is stripped as illustrated in
The spaces between the towers are filled and the towers are covered with oxide 5530 by low temperature gap fill deposition, CMP, then another oxide deposition as illustrated in
In
This flow enables the formation of fully crystallized silicon top vertical junction-less transistors that are connected to the underlying multi-metal layer semiconductor device without exposing the underlying devices and interconnect metals to high temperature. These junction-less transistors may be used as programming transistors of the Antifuse on acceptor wafer or house 808 or as a pass transistor for logic or FPGA use, or for additional uses in a 3D semiconductor device.
Recessed Channel Array Transistors (RCATs) may be another transistor family that can utilize layer transfer and etch definition to construct a low-temperature monolithic 3D Integrated Circuit. Two types of RCAT device structures are shown in
A layer stacking approach to construct 3D integrated circuits with standard RCATs is illustrated in
An oxide layer 6701 may be grown or deposited, as illustrated in
A layer transfer process may be conducted to attach the donor wafer in
After the cut, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) may be performed. Oxide isolation regions 6705 may be formed and an etch process may be conducted to form the recessed channel 6706 as illustrated in
A gate dielectric 6707 may then be deposited, either through atomic layer deposition or through other low-temperature oxide formation procedures described previously. A metal gate 6708 may then be deposited to fill the recessed channel, followed by a CMP and gate patterning as illustrated in
A low temperature oxide 6709 may be deposited and planarized by CMP. Contacts 6710 may be formed to connect to all electrodes of the transistor as illustrated in
A layer stacking approach to construct 3D integrated circuits with spherical-RCATs (S-RCATs) is illustrated in
An oxide layer 6801 may be grown or deposited, as illustrated in
A layer transfer process may be conducted to attach the donor wafer in
Oxide isolation regions 6805 may be formed as illustrated in
An anisotropic etch of the spacer may be performed to leave spacer material only on the vertical sidewalls of the recessed gate channel opening. An isotropic silicon etch may then be conducted to form the spherical recess 6807 as illustrated in
A gate dielectric 6808 may then be deposited, either through atomic layer deposition or through other low-temperature oxide formation procedures described previously. A metal gate 6809 may be deposited to fill the recessed channel, followed by a CMP and gate patterning as illustrated in
This flow enables the formation of a low temperature S-RCAT monolithically on top of pre-processed circuitry 808. A p-channel MOSFET may be formed with an analogous process. The p and n channel S-RCATs may be utilized to form a monolithic 3D CMOS circuit library as described later. In addition, SRAM circuits constructed with RCATs may have different trench depths compared to logic circuits. The RCAT and S-RCAT devices may be utilized to form BiCMOS inverters and other mixed circuitry when the house 808 layer has conventional Bipolar Junction Transistors and the transferred layer or layers may be utilized to form the RCAT devices monolithically.
Floating-body DRAM is a next generation DRAM being developed by many companies such as Innovative Silicon, Hynix, and Toshiba. These floating-body DRAMs store data as charge in the floating body of an SOI MOSFET or a multi-gate MOSFET. Further details of a floating body DRAM and its operation modes can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,541,616, 7,514,748, 7,499,358, 7,499,352, 7,492,632, 7,486,563, 7,477,540, and 7,476,939, besides other literature. A monolithic 3D integrated DRAM can be constructed with floating-body transistors. Prior art for constructing monolithic 3D DRAMs used planar transistors where crystalline silicon layers were formed with either selective epi technology or laser recrystallization. Both selective epi technology and laser recrystallization may not provide perfectly single crystal silicon and often require a high thermal budget. A description of these processes is given in the book entitled “Integrated Interconnect Technologies for 3D Nanoelectronic Systems” by Bakir and Meindl.
An alternative embodiment of this invention may be a monolithic 3D DRAM we call NuDRAM. It may utilize layer transfer and cleaving methods described in this document. It may provide high-quality single crystal silicon at low effective thermal budget, leading to considerable advantage over prior art.
One embodiment of this invention may be constructed with the process flow depicted in FIG. 88(A)-(F).
The next step of the process is described with respect to
FIG. 89(A)-(D) show the side-views, layout, and schematic of one part of the NuDRAM array described in FIG. 88(A)-(F).
A cross-sectional view taken along the plane indicated by the broken line as shown in
A layout of this array is shown in
Another variation embodiment of the current invention is described in FIG. 90(A)-(F).
As shown in
The next step of the process is described in
Yet another flow for constructing NuDRAMs is shown in
Following this, a gate trench etch 9103 may be performed as illustrated in
The next step in the process is illustrated in
This “higher layer” 9108 may then be flipped and bonded to the lower wafer 9101 using oxide-to-oxide bonding. A cleave may then be performed at the hydrogen plane 9110, following which a CMP may be performed resulting in the structure as illustrated in
As shown in
Following the formations of BLs 9116 and SL 9117,
A variation of the flow shown in
An illustration of a NuDRAM constructed with partially depleted SOI transistors is given in
For the purpose of programming transistors, a single type of top transistor could be sufficient. Yet for logic type circuitry two complementing transistors might be helpful to allow CMOS type logic. Accordingly the above described various mono-type transistor flows could be performed twice. First perform all the steps to build the ‘n’ type, and than do an additional layer transfer to build the ‘p’ type on top of it.
An additional alternative is to build both ‘n’ type and ‘p’ type transistors on the same layer. The challenge is to form these transistors aligned to the underlying layers 808. The innovative solution is described with the help of
The donor wafer 3000 will be placed on top of the main wafer 3100 for a layer transfer as described previously. The state of the art allows for very good angular alignment of this bonding step but it is difficult to achieve a better than approximately 1 μm position alignment.
Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the directions North, South, East and West are used for illustrative purposes only, have no relationship to true geographic directions, that the North-South direction could become the East-West direction (and vice versa) by merely rotating the wafer 90° and that the rows of ‘n’ type transistors 3004 and rows of ‘p’ type transistors 3006 could also run North-South as a matter of design choice with corresponding adjustments to the rest of the fabrication process. Such skilled persons will further appreciate that the rows of ‘n’ type transistors 3004 and rows of ‘p’ type transistors 3006 can have many different organizations as a matter of design choice. For example, the rows of ‘n’ type transistors 3004 and rows of ‘p’ type transistors 3006 can each comprise a single row of transistors in parallel, multiple rows of transistors in parallel, multiple groups of transistors of different dimensions and orientations and types (either individually or in groups), and different ratios of transistor sizes or numbers between the rows of ‘n’ type transistors 3004 and rows of ‘p’ type transistors 3006, etc. Thus the scope of the invention is to be limited only by the appended claims.
In the construction of this described monolithic 3D Integrated Circuits the objective is to connect structures built on layer 3000L to the underlying main wafer 3100 and to structures on 808 layers at about the same density and accuracy as the connections between layers in 808, which requires alignment accuracies on the order of tens of nm or better.
In the direction East-West the approach will be the same as was described before with respect to
So the effective alignment uncertainty may be calculated as to how many Ws-full patterns of ‘n’ 3004 and ‘p’ 3006 row pairs would fit in DY 3122 and what would be the residue Rdy 3202 (remainder of DY modulo W, 0<=Rdy<W) as illustrated in
Alternatively, multiple alignment marks on the donor wafer could be used as illustrated in
The illustration in
Each wafer that will be processed accordingly through this flow will have a specific Rdy 3202 which will be subject to the actual misalignment DY 3122. But the masks used for patterning the various patterns need to be pre-designed and fabricated and remain the same for all wafers (processed for the same end-device) regardless of the actual misalignment. In order to improve the connection between structures on the transferred layer 3000L and the underlying main wafer 3100, the underlying wafer 3100 is designed to have a landing zone of a strip 33A04 going North-South of length W 3008 plus any extension required for the via design rules, as illustrated in
Alternatively a North-South landing strip 33B04 with at least W length, plus extensions per the via design rules and other compensations described above, may be made on the upper layer 3000L and accordingly aligned to the underlying alignment mark 3120 with Rdy offset, thus connected to the via 33B02 coming ‘up’ and being part of the underlying pattern aligned to the underlying alignment mark 3120 (with no offset).
An example of a process flow to create complementary transistors on a single transferred layer for CMOS logic is as follows. First, a donor wafer may be preprocessed to be prepared for the layer transfer. This complementary donor wafer may be specifically processed to create repeating rows 3400 of p and n wells whereby their combined widths is W 3008 as illustrated in
This is followed by a P− epi growth (epitaxial growth) 3408 and a mask, ion implantation, and anneal of N− regions 3410 in
Next, a shallow P+ 3412 and N+ 3414 are formed by mask, shallow ion implantation, and RTA activation as shown in
Now a layer-transfer-flow is performed, as illustrated in
A variation of the p & n well stripe donor wafer preprocessing above is to also preprocess the well isolations with shallow trench etching, dielectric fill, and CMP prior to the layer transfer.
The step by step low temperature formation side views of the planar CMOS transistors on the complementary donor wafer (
Then the substrate P+ 35B06 and N+ 35B08 source and 808 metal layer 35B04 access openings, as well as the transistor isolation 35B02 are masked and etched in
Utilizing an additional masking layer, the isolation region 35C02 is defined by etching all the way to the top of preprocessed wafer or layer 808 to provide full isolation between transistors or groups of transistors in
The n-channel source 35D02, drain 35D04 and self-aligned gate 35D06 are defined by masking and etching the thin polish stop layer 35C06 and then a sloped N+ etch as illustrated in
Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that while the transistors fabricated in
An alternative method whereby to build both ‘n’ type and ‘p’ type transistors on the same layer may be to partially process the first phase of transistor formation on the donor wafer with normal CMOS processing including a ‘dummy gate’, a process known as gate-last transistors. In this embodiment of the invention, a layer transfer of the monocrystalline silicon may be performed after the dummy gate is completed and before the formation of a replacement gate. Processing prior to layer transfer may have no temperature restrictions and the processing during and after layer transfer may be limited to low temperatures, generally, for example, below 400° C. The dummy gate and the replacement gate may include various materials such as silicon and silicon dioxide, or metal and low k materials such as TiAlN and HfO2. An example may be the high-k metal gate (HKMG) CMOS transistors that have been developed for the 45 nm, 32 nm, 22 nm, and future CMOS generations. Intel and TSMC have shown the advantages of a ‘gate-last’ approach to construct high performance HKMG CMOS transistors (C, Auth et al., VLSI 2008, pp 128-129 and C. H. Jan et al, 2009 IEDM p. 647).
As illustrated in
The donor wafer 7000 may be now temporarily bonded to carrier substrate 7014 at interface 7016 as illustrated in
The donor wafer 7000 may then be cleaved at the cleaving plane 7012 and may be thinned by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) so that the transistor isolation 7002 may be exposed at the donor wafer face 7018 as illustrated in
As shown in
A low temperature (for example, less than 400° C.) layer transfer flow may be performed, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
The bonded combination of acceptor wafer 808 and HKMG transistor silicon layer 7001 may now be ready for normal state of the art gate-last transistor formation completion. As illustrated in
As illustrated in
Alternatively, the carrier substrate 7014 may be a silicon wafer, and infra red light and optics could be utilized for alignments.
An interesting alternative is available when using the carrier wafer flow. In this flow we can use the two sides of the transferred layer to build NMOS on one side and PMOS on the other side. Timing properly the replacement gate step in such a flow could enable full performance transistors properly aligned to each other. Compact 3D library cells may be constructed from this process flow.
As illustrated in
At this step, or alternatively just after a CMP of layer 8308 to expose the polysilicon dummy gates or to planarize the oxide layer 8308 and not expose the dummy gates, an implant of an atomic species 8310, such as, for example, H+, may prepare the cleaving plane 8312 in the bulk of the donor substrate for layer transfer suitability, as illustrated in
The SOI donor wafer 8300 may now be permanently bonded to a carrier wafer 8320 that has been prepared with an oxide layer 8316 for oxide-to-oxide bonding to the donor wafer surface 8314 as illustrated in
As illustrated in
The donor wafer layer 8300 at surface 8322 may be processed in the normal state of the art gate last processing to form the PMOS transistors with dummy gates.
Then an implant of an atomic species 8340, such as, for example, H+, may prepare the cleaving plane 8321 in the bulk of the carrier wafer substrate 8320 for layer transfer suitability, as illustrated in
The PMOS transistors may now be ready for normal state of the art gate-last transistor formation completion. As illustrated in
The carrier wafer and two sided n/p layer may then be aligned and permanently bonded to House acceptor wafer 808 with associated metal landing strip 8350 as illustrated in
The carrier wafer 8320 may then be cleaved at the cleaving plane 8321 and may be thinned by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) to oxide layer 8316 as illustrated in
The NMOS transistors are now ready for normal state of the art gate-last transistor formation completion. As illustrated in
As illustrated in
FIG. 83L1 is a drawing illustration of the generic cell 83L00 customized by custom NMOS transistor contacts 83L22, 83L24 and custom metal 83L26 to form a double inverter. The Vss power line 83L25 may run on top of the NMOS transistors.
FIG. 83L2 is a drawing illustration of the generic cell 83L00 customized to a NOR function, FIG. 83L3 is a drawing illustration of the generic cell 83L00 customized to a NAND function and FIG. 83L3 is a drawing illustration of the generic cell 83L00 customized to a multiplexer function. Accordingly cell 83L00 could be customized to all the required logic function so a generic gate array using array of cells 83L00 could be customized with custom contacts vias and metal layers to any logic function.
Another alternative, with reference to
Additional alternatives to the use of an SOI donor wafer may be employed to isolate transistors in the vertical direction. For example, a pn junction may be formed between the vertically stacked transistors and may be biased. Also, oxygen ions may be implanted between the vertically stacked transistors and annealed to form a buried oxide layer. Also, a silicon-on-replacement-insulator technique may be utilized for the first formed dummy transistors wherein a buried SiGe layer is selectively etched out and refilled with oxide, thereby creating islands of electrically isolated silicon.
An alternative embodiment of the above process flow with reference to
The contact and metallization steps may be performed as illustrated in
The face 8102 of donor wafer 8100 may be prepared for bonding by deposition of an oxide 8104, and plasma or other surface treatments to prepare the oxide surface 8106 for wafer-to-wafer oxide-to-oxide bonding as illustrated in
Similar surface preparation may be performed on the 808 acceptor wafer in preparation for the oxide-to-oxide bonding. Now a low temperature (e.g., less than 400° C.) layer transfer flow may be performed, as illustrated in
The donor wafer 8100 may then be cleaved at the cleaving plane 7012 and may be thinned by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) so that the transistor isolations 7002 and 8130 may be exposed as illustrated in
As illustrated in
The face down flow has some advantages such as, for example, enabling double gate transistors, back biased transistors, or access to the floating body in memory applications. For example, a back gate for a double gate transistor may be constructed as illustrated in
The metal hookup may be constructed as illustrated in
As illustrated in
An alternative embodiment of the above double gate process flow that may provide a back gate in a face-up flow is illustrated in
A second gate oxide 8502 may be grown or deposited as illustrated in
The gate stack 8506 may be defined, a dielectric 8508 may be deposited and planarized, and then local contacts 8510 and layer to layer contacts 8512 and metallization 8516 may be formed as illustrated in
As shown in
As illustrated in
The bonded combination of acceptor wafer 808 and HKMG transistor silicon layer 7001 may now be ready for normal state of the art gate-last transistor formation completion as illustrated in
The current invention may overcome the challenge of forming these planar transistors aligned to the underlying layers 808 as described in association with
As illustrated in
The donor wafer layer 3000L, now thinned and the first-phase-transistor-formation pre-processed HKMG silicon layer 7001 with the attached carrier substrate 7014 completed as described previously in relation to
The low temperature post layer transfer process flow for the donor wafer layout with gates parallel to the source and drains as shown in
The interlayer dielectric (ILD) 7008 may be chemical mechanical polished (CMP'd) to expose the top of the dummy polysilicon and the layer-to-layer via 7040 may be etched, metal filled, and CMP'd flat as illustrated in
The long rows of pre-formed transistors may be etched into desired lengths or segments by forming isolation regions 7202 as illustrated in
Alternatively, regions 7202 may be selectively opened and filled for the PMOS and NMOS transistors separately to provide compressive or tensile stress enhancement to the transistor channels for carrier mobility enhancement.
The polysilicon 7004 and oxide 7005 dummy gates may now be etched out to provide some gate overlap between the isolation 7202 edge and the normal replacement gate deposition of high-k dielectric 7026, PMOS metal gate 7028 and NMOS metal gate 7030. In addition, aluminum overfill 7032 may be performed. The CMP of the Aluminum 7032 may be performed to planarize the surface for the gate definition as illustrated in
The replacement gates 7215 may be patterned and etched as illustrated in
An interlayer dielectric may be deposited and planarized with CMP, and normal contact formation and metallization may be performed to make gate 7220, source 7222, drain 7224, and interlayer via 7240 connections as illustrated in
In an alternative embodiment, the donor wafer 7000 may be pre-processed for the first phase of transistor formation to build n and p type dummy transistors comprising repeated patterns in both directions.
The donor wafer layer 3000L, now thinned and comprising the first phase of transistor formation pre-processed HKMG silicon layer 7001 with attached carrier substrate 7014 completed as described previously in relation to
The proposed structure, illustrated in
Each wafer to be processed according to this flow may have at least one specific Rdx 7308 and Rdy 3202 which may be subject to the actual misalignment DX 3124 and DY 3122 and Wx and Wy. The masks used for patterning the various circuit patterns may be pre-designed and fabricated and remain the same for all wafers (processed for the same end-device) regardless of the actual wafer to wafer misalignment. In order to allow the connection between structures on the donor layer 7001 and the underlying acceptor wafer 808, the underlying wafer 808 may be designed to have a landing zone rectangle 7504 extending North-South of length Wy 7304 plus any extension required for the via design rules, and extending East-West of length Wx 7306 plus any extension required for the via design rules, as illustrated in
In an alternative embodiment, the rectangular landing zone 7504 in acceptor substrate 808 may be replaced by a landing strip 77A04 in the acceptor wafer and an orthogonal landing strip 77A06 in the donor layer as illustrated in
The donor wafer layer 3000L, now thinned and comprising the first-phase-transistor-formation pre-processed HKMG silicon layer 7001 with attached carrier substrate 7014 completed as described previously in relation to
Alternatively, the repeating pattern of continuous diffusion sea of gates described in
In an alternative embodiment, the gates 7622B may be repeated in the East to West direction as pairs with an additional repeat of isolations 7810 as illustrated in
Alternatively, to increase the density of thru layer via connections in the donor wafer layer to layer via channel, the donor landing strip 77A06 may be designed to be less than Wx 7306 in length by utilizing increases 7900 in the width of the landing strip in the House 77A04 and offsetting the through layer via 77A02 properly as illustrated in
In an additional embodiment, a block of a non repeating pattern device structures may be prepared on a donor wafer and layer transferred using the above described techniques. This donor wafer of non-repeating pattern device structure may be a memory block of DRAM, or a block of Input-Output circuits, or any other block. A general connectivity structure 8002 may be used to connect the donor wafer non-repeating pattern device structure 8004 to the acceptor wafer—house wafer die 8000.
House 808 wafer die 8000 is illustrated in
The donor wafer may comprise sections of repeating device structure elements such as those illustrated in
The above flows, whether single type transistor donor wafer or complementary type transistor donor wafer, could be repeated multiple times to build a multi level 3D monolithic integrated system. These flows could also provide a mix of device technologies in a monolithic 3D manner. For example, device I/O or analog circuitry such as, for example, phase-locked loops (PLL), clock distribution, or RF circuits could be integrated with CMOS logic circuits via layer transfer, or bipolar circuits could be integrated with CMOS logic circuits, or analog devices could be integrated with logic, and so on. Prior art shows alternative technologies of constructing 3D devices. The most common technologies are, either using thin film transistors (TFT) to construct a monolithic 3D device, or stacking prefabricated wafers and then using a through silicon via (TSV) to connect the prefabricated wafers. The TFT approach is limited by the performance of thin film transistors while the stacking approach is limited by the relatively large lateral size of the TSV via (on the order of a few microns) due to the relatively large thickness of the 3D layer (about 60 microns) and accordingly the relatively low density of the through silicon vias connecting them. According to many embodiments of the present invention that construct 3D IC based on layer transfer techniques, the transferred layer may be a thin layer of less than 0.4 micron. This 3D IC with transferred layer according to some embodiments of the present invention is in sharp contrast to TSV based 3D ICs in the prior art where the layers connected by TSV are more than 5 microns thick and in most cases more than 50 microns thick.
The alternative process flows presented in
Accordingly the presented alternatives allow for true monolithic 3D devices. This monolithic 3D technology provides the ability to integrate with full density, and to be scaled to tighter features, at the same pace as the semiconductor industry.
Additionally, true monolithic 3D devices allow the formation of various sub-circuit structures in a spatially efficient configuration with higher performance than 2D equivalent structures. Illustrated below are some examples of how a 3D ‘library’ of cells may be constructed in the true monolithic 3D fashion.
An acceptor wafer is preprocessed as illustrated in
A process flow to create devices and interconnect to build the 3D library is illustrated in
Now a standard NMOS transistor formation process flow is performed, with two exceptions. First, no photolithographic masking steps are used for an implant step that differentiates NMOS and PMOS devices, as only the NMOS devices are being formed now. Second, high temperature anneal steps may or may not be done during the NMOS formation, as some or all of the necessary anneals can be done after the PMOS formation described later. A typical shallow trench (STI) isolation region 4410 is formed between the eventual NMOS transistors by masking, plasma etching of the unmasked regions of P− layer 4301 to the oxide layer 4400, stripping the masking layer, depositing a gap-fill oxide, and chemical mechanically polishing the gap-fill oxide flat as illustrated in
A gate oxide 4411 is thermally grown and doped polysilicon is deposited to form the gate stack. The gate stack is lithographically defined and etched, creating NMOS gates 4412 and the poly on STI interconnect 4414 as illustrated in
A donor wafer to create PMOS devices is preprocessed to prepare for layer transfer as illustrated in
Now a layer-transfer-flow may be performed to transfer the pre-processed single crystal silicon donor wafer on top of the acceptor wafer as illustrated in
For the sake of clarity, the two oxide layers, 4420 from the acceptor and 4504 from the donor wafer, are combined and designated as 4500. Now a standard PMOS transistor formation process flow is performed, with one exception. No photolithographic masking steps are used for the implant steps that differentiate NMOS and PMOS devices, as only the PMOS devices are being formed now. An advantage of this 3D cell structure is the independent formation of the PMOS transistors and the NMOS transistors. Therefore, each transistor formation may be optimized independently. This may be accomplished by the independent selection of the crystal orientation, various stress materials and techniques, such as, for example, doping profiles, material thicknesses and compositions, temperature cycles, and so forth.
A polishing stop layer, such as silicon nitride or amorphous carbon, may be deposited after a protecting oxide layer 4510. A typical shallow trench (STI) isolation region 4512 is formed between the eventual PMOS transistors by lithographic definition, plasma etching to the oxide layer 4500, depositing a gap-fill oxide, and chemical mechanically polishing flat as illustrated in
The silicon surface is cleaned of remaining oxide with an HF (Hydrofluoric Acid) etch. A gate oxide 4514 is thermally grown and doped polysilicon is deposited to form the gate stack. The gate stack is lithographically defined and etched, creating PMOS gates 4516 and the poly on STI interconnect 4518 as illustrated in
A thick oxide 4524 is deposited as illustrated in
With reference to the 2D CMOS inverter cell schematic and layout illustrated in
The X direction cross sectional view is illustrated in
Other 3D logic or memory cells may be constructed in a similar fashion. An example of a typical 2D 2-input NOR cell schematic and layout is illustrated in
The above process flow may be used to construct a compact 3D 2-input NOR cell example as illustrated in
The NMOS and PMOS gates 4802 are drawn coincident and stacked, and each are connected by a NMOS gate on STI to PMOS gate on STI contact 4804, which is similar to contact 4542 in
The N+ source contact to the ground plane 4806 in
The above process flow may be used to construct an alternative compact 3D 2-input NOR cell example as illustrated in
The PMOS-B gate 4902 may be drawn coincident and stacked with dummy gate 4904, and the PMOS-B gate 4902 is connected to input B by PMOS gate only on STI contact 4908. Both the NMOS-A gate 4910 and NMOS-B gate 4912 are drawn underneath the PMOS-A gate 4906. The NMOS-A gate 4910 and the PMOS-A gate 4912 are connected together and to input A by NMOS gate on STI to PMOS gate on STI contact 4914, which is similar to contact 4542 in
The N+ source contact to the ground plane 4918 in
The above process flow may also be used to construct a CMOS transmission gate. An example of a typical 2D CMOS transmission gate schematic and layout is illustrated in
The above process flow may be used to construct a compact 3D CMOS transmission cell example as illustrated in
Additional logic and memory cells, such as a 2-input NAND gate, a transmission gate, an MOS driver, a flip-flop, a 6T SRAM, a floating body DRAM, a CAM (Content Addressable Memory) array, etc. may be similarly constructed with this 3D process flow and methodology.
Another more compact 3D library may be constructed whereby one or more layers of metal interconnect may be allowed between the NMOS and PMOS devices. This methodology may allow more compact cell construction especially when the cells are complex; however, the top PMOS devices should now be made with a low-temperature layer transfer and transistor formation process as shown previously, unless the metals between the NMOS and PMOS layers are constructed with refractory metals, such as, for example, Tungsten.
Accordingly, the library process flow proceeds as described above for
The above process flow may be used to construct, for example, a compact 3D CMOS 6-Transistor SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) cell as illustrated, for example, in
The topside NMOS, with no metal shown, view of the 3D SRAM cell is illustrated in
The above process flow may also be used to construct a compact 3D CMOS 2 Input NAND cell example as illustrated in
The topside view of the 3D NAND-2 cell, with no metal shown, is illustrated in
Another compact 3D library may be constructed whereby one or more layers of metal interconnect is allowed between more than two NMOS and PMOS device layers. This methodology allows a more compact cell construction especially when the cells are complex; however, devices above the first NMOS layer should now be made with a low temperature layer transfer and transistor formation process as shown previously.
Accordingly, the library process flow proceeds as described above for
The above process flow may also be used to construct a compact 3D CMOS Content Addressable Memory (CAM) array as illustrated in
The topside top NMOS view of the 3D CAM cell, without metals shown, is illustrated in
Another compact 3D library may be constructed whereby one or more layers of metal interconnect is allowed between the NMOS and PMOS devices and one or more of the devices is constructed vertically.
A compact 3D CMOS 8 Input NAND cell may be constructed as illustrated in
The topside view of the 3D NAND-8 cell, with no metal shown and with horizontal NMOS and PMOS devices, is illustrated in
A compact 3D CMOS 8 Input NOR may be constructed as illustrated in
The topside view of the 3D NOR-8 cell, with no metal shown and with horizontal NMOS and PMOS devices, is illustrated in
Accordingly a CMOS circuit may be constructed where the various circuit cells are built on two silicon layers achieving a smaller circuit area and shorter intra and inter transistor interconnects. As interconnects become dominating for power and speed, packing circuits in a smaller area would result in a lower power and faster speed end device.
Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that a number of different process flows have been described with exemplary logic gates and memory cells used as representative circuits. Such skilled persons will further appreciate that whichever flow is chosen for an individual design, a library of all the desired logic functions for use in the design may be created so that the cells may easily be reused either within that individual design or in subsequent ones employing the same flow. Such skilled persons will also appreciate that many different design styles may be used for a given design. For example, a library of logic cells could be built in a manor that has uniform height called standard cells as is well known in the art. Alternatively, a library could be created for use in long continuous strips of transistors called a gated array which is also known in the art. In another alternative embodiment, a library of cells could be created for use in a hand crafted or custom design as is well known in the art. For example, in yet another alternative embodiment, any combination of libraries of logic cells tailored to these design approaches can be used in a particular design as a matter of design choice, the only requirement being that the libraries chosen employ the same process flow if they are to be used on the same layers of a 3D IC. Different flows may be used on different levels of a 3D IC, and one or more libraries of cells appropriate for each respective level may be used in a single design.
Also known in the art are computer program products that may be stored in computer readable media for use in data processing systems employed to automate the design process, more commonly known as computer aided design (CAD) software. Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate the advantages of designing the cell libraries in a manner compatible with the use of CAD software.
Persons of ordinary skill in the art will realize that libraries of I/O cells, analog function cells, complete memory blocks of various types, and other circuits may also be created for one or more processing flows to be used in a design and that such libraries may also be made compatible with CAD software. Many other uses and embodiments will suggest themselves to such skilled persons after reading this specification, thus the scope of the invention is to be limited only by the appended claims.
Additionally, when circuit cells are built on two or more layers of thin silicon as shown above, and enjoy the dense vertical thru silicon via interconnections, the metallization layer scheme to take advantage of this dense 3D technology may be improved as follows.
The metallization layer scheme may be improved for 3D circuits as illustrated in
As well, the independent formation of each transistor layer enables the use of materials other than silicon to construct transistors. For example, a thin III-V compound quantum well channel such as InGaAs and InSb may be utilized on one or more of the 3D layers described above by direct layer transfer or deposition and the use of buffer compounds such as GaAs and InAlAs to buffer the silicon and III-V lattice mismatches. This enables high mobility transistors that can be optimized independently for p and n-channel use, solving the integration difficulties of incorporating n and p III-V transistors on the same substrate, and also the difficulty of integrating the III-V transistors with conventional silicon transistors on the same substrate. For example, the first layer silicon transistors and metallization generally cannot be exposed to temperatures higher than 400° C. The III-V compounds, buffer layers, and dopings generally require processing temperatures above that 400° C. threshold. By use of the pre deposited, doped, and annealed layer donor wafer formation and subsequent donor to acceptor wafer transfer techniques described above and illustrated in
It should be noted that this 3D IC technology could be used for many applications. As an example the various structures presented in
It also should be noted that the 3D programmable system, where the logic fabric is sized by dicing a wafer of tiled array as illustrated in
When a substrate wafer, carrier wafer, or donor wafer is thinned by a cleaving method and a chemical mechanical polish (CMP) in this document, there are other methods that may be employed to thin the wafer. For example, a boron implant and anneal may be utilized to create a layer in the silicon substrate to be thinned that will provide a wet chemical etch stop plane. A dry etch, such as a halogen gas cluster beam, may be employed to thin a silicon substrate and then smooth the silicon surface with an oxygen gas cluster beam. Additionally, these thinning techniques may be utilized independently or in combination to achieve the proper thickness and defect free surface as required by the process flow.
In general logic devices comprise varying quantities of logic elements, varying amounts of memories, and varying amounts of I/O. The continuous array of the prior art allows defining various die sizes out of the same wafers and accordingly varying amounts of logic, but it is far more difficult to vary the three-way ratio between logic, I/O, and memory. In addition, there exists different types of memories such as SRAM, DRAM, Flash, and others, and there exist different types of I/O such as SerDes. Some applications might need still other functions like processor, DSP, analog functions, and others.
Embodiments of the current invention may enable a different approach. Instead of trying to put all of these different functions onto one programmable die, which will require a large number of very expensive mask sets, it uses Through-Silicon Via to construct configurable systems. The technology of “Package of integrated circuits and vertical integration” has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,322,903 issued to Oleg Siniaguine and Sergey Savastiouk on Nov. 27, 2001.
Accordingly embodiments of the current invention may suggest the use of a continuous array of tiles focusing each one on a single, or very few types of, function. Then, it constructs the end-system by integrating the desired amount from each type of tiles, in a 3D IC system.
It should be noted that in general the lithography over the wafer is done by repeatedly projecting what is named reticle over the wafer in a “step-and-repeat” manner. In some cases it might be preferable to consider differently the separation between repeating tile 102 within a reticle image vs. tiles that relate to two projections. For simplicity this description will use the term wafer but in some cases it will apply only to tiles with one reticle.
The repeating tile 102 could be of various sizes. For FPGA applications it may be reasonable to assume tile 1101 to have an edge size between 0.5 mm to 1 mm which allows good balance between the end-device size and acceptable relative area loss due to the unused potential dice lines 1102.
There are many advantages for a uniform repeating tile structure of
An additional advantage for this construction of a tiled FPGA array with MCUs is in the construction of an SoC with embedded FPGA function. A single tile 3601 could be connected to an SoC using Through Silicon Vias—TSVs and accordingly provides a self-contained embedded FPGA function.
Clearly, the same scheme can be modified to use the East/North (or any other combination of orthogonal directions) to encode effectively an identical priority scheme.
I/O circuits are a good example of where it could be advantageous to utilize an older generation process. Usually, the process drivers are SRAM and logic circuits. It often takes longer to develop the analog function associated with I/O circuits, SerDes circuits, PLLs, and other linear functions. Additionally, while there may be an advantage to using smaller transistors for the logic functionality, I/O may require stronger drive and relatively larger transistors. Accordingly, using an older process may be more cost effective, as the older process wafer might cost less while still performing effectively.
An additional function that it might be advantageous to pull out of the programmable logic die and onto one of the other dies in the 3D system, connected by Through-Silicon-Vias, may be the Clock circuits and their associated PLL, DLL, and control. Clock circuits and distribution. These circuits may often be area consuming and may also be challenging in view of noise generation. They also could in many cases be more effectively implemented using an older process. The Clock tree and distribution circuits could be included in the I/O die. Additionally the clock signal could be transferred to the programmable die using the Through-Silicon-Vias (TSVs) or by optical means. A technique to transfer data between dies by optical means was presented for example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,052,498 assigned to Intel Corp.
Alternatively an optical clock distribution could be used. There are new techniques to build optical guides on silicon or other substrates. An optical clock distribution may be utilized to minimize the power used for clock signal distribution and would enable low skew and low noise for the rest of the digital system. Having the optical clock constructed on a different die and than connected to the digital die by means of Through-Silicon-Vias or by optical means make it very practical, when compared to the prior art of integrating optical clock distribution with logic on the same die.
Alternatively the optical clock distribution guides and potentially some of the support electronics such as the conversion of the optical signal to electronic signal could be integrated by using layer transfer and smart cut approaches as been described before in
And as related to
Having wafers dedicated to each of these functions may support high volume generic product manufacturing. Then, similar to Lego® blocks, many different configurable systems could be constructed with various amounts of logic memory and I/O. In addition to the alternatives presented in
An additional function that would fit well for 3D systems using TSVs, as described, is a power control function. In many cases it is desired to shut down power at times to a portion of the IC that is not currently operational. Using controlled power distribution by an external die connected by TSVs is advantageous as the power supply voltage to this external die could be higher because it is using an older process. Having a higher supply voltage allows easier and better control of power distribution to the controlled die.
Those components of configurable systems could be built by one vendor, or by multiple vendors, who agree on a standard physical interface to allow mix-and-match of various dies from various vendors.
The construction of the 3D Programmable System could be done for the general market use or custom-tailored for a specific customer.
Another advantage of some embodiments of this invention may be an ability to mix and match various processes. It might be advantageous to use memory from a leading edge process, while the I/O, and maybe an analog function die, could be used from an older process of mature technology (e.g., as discussed above).
The Through Silicon Via technology is constantly evolving. In the early generations such via would be 10 microns in diameter. Advanced work is now demonstrating Through Silicon Via with less than a 1-micron diameter. Yet, the density of connections horizontally within the die may typically still be far denser than the vertical connection using Through Silicon Via.
In another alternative of the present invention the logic portion could be broken up into multiple dies, which may be of the same size, to be integrated to a 3D configurable system. Similarly it could be advantageous to divide the memory into multiple dies, and so forth, with other function.
Recent work on 3D integration shows effective ways to bond wafers together and then dice those bonded wafers. This kind of assembly may lead to die structures like
An additional variation of the invention may be the adaptation of the continuous array (presented in relation to
The continuous logic terrain could use any transistor style including the various transistors previously presented. An additional advantage to some of the 3D layer transfer techniques previously presented may be the option to pre-build, in high volume, transistor terrains for further reduction of 3D custom IC manufacturing costs.
Similarly a memory terrain could be constructed as a continuous repeating memory structure with a fully populated reticle. The non-repeating elements of most memories may be the address decoder and some times the sense circuits. Those non repeating elements may be constructed using the logic transistors of the underlying or overlying layer.
The generic continuous array 8430 may be a reticle step field sized terrain of SRAM bit cells 8420 wherein the transistor layers and even the Metal 1 layer may be used by all designs.
Constructing 3D ICs utilizing multiple layers of different function may combine 3D layers using the layer transfer techniques according to some embodiments of the current invention, with fully prefabricated device connected by industry standard TSV technique.
An additional aspect of the current invention may provide a yield repair for random logic. The 3D IC techniques thus presented may allow the construction of a very complex logic 3D IC by using multiple layers of logic. In such a complex 3D IC, enabling the repair of random defects common in IC manufacturing may be highly desirable. Repair of repeating structures is known and commonly used in memories and will be presented in respect to
Multiple alternatives may exist for inserting the new input, including the use of programmability such as, for example, a one-time-programmable element to switch the multiplexer 8714 from the original input 8712 to the repaired input 8708 without the need of a top control wire 8710.
At the fabrication, the 3D IC wafer may go through a full scan test. If a fault is detected, a yield repair process would be applied. Using the design data base, repair logic may be built on the upper layer 8632. The repair logic has access to all the primary outputs as they are all available on the top layer. Accordingly, those outputs needed for the repair may be used in the reconstruction of the exact logic found to be faulty. The reconstructed logic may include some enhancement such as drive size or metal wires strength to compensate for the longer lines going up and then down. The repair logic, as a de-facto replacement of the faulty logic ‘cone,’ may be built using the uncommitted transistors on the top layer. The top layer may be customized with a custom metal layer defined for each die on the wafer as required by utilizing the direct write eBeam. The replacement signal 8708 may be connected to the proper Flip Flop and become active by having the top control signal 8710 active low.
The repair flow may also be used for performance enhancement. If the wafer test includes timing measurements, a slow performing logic ‘cone’ could be replaced in a similar manner to a faulty logic ‘cone’ described previously, e.g., in the preceding paragraph.
The elements of the invention related to
According to the yield repair design methodology, substantially all the primary outputs 8706 may go up and substantially all primary inputs 8712 could be replaced by signals coming from the top 8708.
An additional advantage of this yield repair design methodology may be the ability to reuse logic layers from one design to another design. For example, a 3D IC system may be designed wherein one of the layers may comprise a WiFi transceiver receiver. And such circuit may now be needed for a completely different 3D IC. It might be advantageous to reuse the same WiFi transceiver receiver in the new design by just having the receiver as one of the new 3D IC design layers to save the redesign effort and the associated NRE (non recurring expense) for masks and etc. The reuse could be applied to many other functions, allowing the 3D IC to resemble the old way of integrating function—the PC (printed circuit) Board. For such a concept to work well, a connectivity standard for the connection of wires up and down may be desirable.
Another application of these concepts could be the use of the upper layer to modify the clock timing by adjusting the clock of the actual device and its various fabricated elements. Scan circuits could be used to measure the clock skew and report it to an external design tool. The external design tool could construct the timing modification that would be applied by the clock modification circuits. A direct write ebeam could then be used to form the transistors and circuitry on the top layer to apply those clock modifications for a better yield and performance of the 3D IC end product.
The flow chart of
One idea of the proposed flow of
Critical nets may be identified usually by using static timing analysis of the design to identify the critical paths and the available “slack” time on these paths, and pass the constraints for these paths to the floor planning, layout, and routing tools so that the final design is not degraded beyond the requirement.
Once the list is constructed it is priority-ordered according to increasing slack, or the median slack, S(n), of the nets. Then, using a partitioning algorithm, such as, but not limited to, MinCut, the design may be split into two parts, with the highest priority nets split about equally between the two parts. The objective is to give the nets that have tight slack a better chance to be placed close enough to meet the timing challenge. Those nets that have higher than K1 nodes tend to get spread over a larger area, and by spreading into three dimensions we get a better chance to meet the timing challenge.
The Flow of
Clearly the same Flow could be adjusted to three-way partition or any other number according to the number of dies the logic will be spread on.
Constructing a 3D Configurable System comprising antifuse based logic also provides features that may implement yield enhancement through utilizing redundancies. This may be even more convenient in a 3D structure of embodiments of the current invention because the memories may not be sprinkled between the logic but may rather be concentrated in the memory die, which may be vertically connected to the logic die. Constructing redundancy in the memory, and the proper self-repair flow, may have a smaller effect on the logic and system performance.
The potential dicing streets of the continuous array of this invention represent some loss of silicon area. The narrower the street the lower the loss is, and therefore, it may be advantageous to use advanced dicing techniques that can create and work with narrow streets.
An additional advantage of the 3D Configurable System of various embodiments of this invention may be a reduction in testing cost. This is the result of building a unique system by using standard ‘Lego®’ blocks. Testing standard blocks could reduce the cost of testing by using standard probe cards and standard test programs.
The disclosure presents two forms of 3D IC system, first by using TSV and second by using the method referred to herein as the ‘Attic’ described in
An additional alternative of the invention is a method to allow redundancy so that the highly integrated 3D systems using the layer transfer technique could be produced with good yield. For the purpose of illustrating this redundancy invention we will use the programmable tile array presented in
When the end product programmable system is being programmed for the end application each tile will run its own Built-in Test using its own MCU. A tile that is detected to have a defect will be replaced by the tile in the redundancy layer 4110. The replacement will be done by the tile that is at the same location but in the redundancy layer and therefore it should have an acceptable impact on the overall product functionality and performance. For example, if tile (1,0,0) has a defect then tile (1,0,1) will be programmed to have exactly the same function and will replace tile (1,0,0) by properly setting the inter tile programmable connections. Therefore, if defective tile (1,0,0) was supposed to be connected to tile (2,0,0) by connection 4104 with programmable element 4106, then programmable element 4106 would be turned off and programmable elements 4116, 4117, 4107 will be turned on instead. A similar multilayer connection structure should be used for any connection in or out of a repeating tile. So if the tile has a defect the redundant tile of the redundant layer would be programmed to the defected tile functionality and the multilayer inter tile structure would be activated to disconnect the faulty tile and connect the redundant tile. The inter layer vertical connection 4140 could be also used when tile (2,0,0) is defective to insert tile (2,0,1), of the redundant layer, instead. In such case (2,0,1) will be programmed to have exactly the same function as tile (2,0,0), programmable element 4108 will be turned off and programmable elements 4118, 4117, 4107 will be turned on instead.
An additional embodiment of the invention may be a modified TSV (Through Silicon Via) flow. This flow may be for wafer-to-wafer TSV and may provide a technique whereby the thickness of the added wafer may be reduced to about 1 micrometer (micron).
The bond may be oxide-to-oxide in some applications or copper-to-copper in other applications. In addition, the bond may be by a hybrid bond wherein some of the bonding surface may be oxide and some may be copper.
After bonding, the top wafer 9304 may be thinned down to about 60 micron in a conventional back-lap and CMP process.
The next step may comprise a high accuracy measurement of the top wafer 9306 thickness. Then, using a high power 1-4 MeV H+ implant, a cleave plane 9310 may be defined in the top wafer 9306. The cleave plane 9310 may be positioned approximately 1 micron above the bond surface as illustrated in
Having the accurate measure of the top wafer 9306 thickness and the highly controlled implant process may enable cleaving most of the top wafer 9306 out thereby leaving a very thin layer 9312 of about 1 micron, bonded on top of the first wafer 9302 as illustrated in
An advantage of this process flow may be that an additional wafer with circuits could now be placed and bonded on top of the bonded structure 9322 in a similar manner. But first a connection layer may be built on the back of 9312 to allow electrical connection to the bonded structure 9322 circuits. Having the top layer thinned to a single micron level may allow such electrical connection metal layers to be fully aligned to the top wafer 9312 electrical circuits 9305 and may allows the vias through the back side of top layer 9312 to be relatively small, of about 100 nm in diameter.
The thinning of the top layer 9312 may enable the modified TSV to be at the level of 100 nm vs. the 5 microns required for TSVs that need to go through 50 microns of silicon. Unfortunately the misalignment of the wafer-to-wafer bonding process may still be quite significant at about +/−0.5 micron. Accordingly, as described elsewhere in this document in relation to
It may be desirable to increase the connection density using a concept as illustrated in
Substantially all the landing strips 9412 and 9413 of
As illustrated in
It should be stated again that the invention could be applied to many applications other than programmable logic such a Graphics Processor which may comprise many repeating processing units. Other applications might include general logic design in 3D ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) or systems combining ASIC layers with layers comprising at least in part other special functions. Persons of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many more embodiment and combinations are possible by employing the inventive principles contained herein and such embodiments will readily suggest themselves to such skilled persons. Thus the invention is not to be limited in any way except by the appended claims.
Yet another alternative to implement 3D redundancy to improve yield by replacing a defective circuit is by the use of Direct Write E-beam instead of a programmable connection.
An additional variation of the programmable 3D system may comprise a tiled array of programmable logic tiles connected with I/O structures that are pre fabricated on the base wafer 1402 of
In yet an additional variation, the programmable 3D system may comprise a tiled array of programmable logic tiles connected with I/O structures that are pre-fabricated on top of the finished base wafer 1402 by using any of the techniques presented in conjunction to
Additional flexibility and reuse of masks may be achieved by utilizing only a portion of the full reticle exposure. Modern steppers allow covering portions of the reticle and hence projecting only a portion of the reticle. Accordingly a portion of a mask set may be used for one function while another portion of that same mask set would be used for another function. For example, let the structure of
In yet an additional alternative of the current invention, the 3D antifuse Configurable System, may also comprise a Programming Die. In some cases of FPGA products, and primarily in antifuse-based products, there is an external apparatus that may be used for the programming the device. In many cases it is a user convenience to integrate this programming function into the FPGA device. This may result in a significant die overhead as the programming process requires higher voltages as well as control logic. The programmer function could be designed into a dedicated Programming Die. Such a Programmer Die could comprise the charge pump, to generate the higher programming voltage, and a controller with the associated programming to program the antifuse configurable dies within the 3D Configurable circuits, and the programming check circuits. The Programming Die might be fabricated using a lower cost older semiconductor process. An additional advantage of this 3D architecture of the Configurable System may be a high volume cost reduction option wherein the antifuse layer may be replaced with a custom layer and, therefore, the Programming Die could be removed from the 3D system for a more cost effective high volume production.
It will be appreciated by persons of ordinary skill in the art, that the present invention is using the term antifuse as it is the common name in the industry, but it also refers in this invention to any micro element that functions like a switch, meaning a micro element that initially has highly resistive-OFF state, and electronically it could be made to switch to a very low resistance—ON state. It could also correspond to a device to switch ON-OFF multiple times—a re-programmable switch. As an example there are new innovations, such as the electro-statically actuated Metal-Droplet micro-switch introduced by C. J. Kim of UCLA micro & nano manufacturing lab, that may be compatible for integration onto CMOS chips.
It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to antifuse configurable logic and it will be applicable to other non-volatile configurable logic. A good example for such is the Flash based configurable logic. Flash programming may also require higher voltages, and having the programming transistors and the programming circuits in the base diffusion layer may reduce the overall density of the base diffusion layer. Using various embodiments of the current invention may be useful and could allow a higher device density. It is therefore suggested to build the programming transistors and the programming circuits, not as part of the diffusion layer, but according to one or more embodiments of the present invention. In high volume production one or more custom masks could be used to replace the function of the Flash programming and accordingly save the need to add on the programming transistors and the programming circuits.
Unlike metal-to-metal antifuses that could be placed as part of the metal interconnection, Flash circuits need to be fabricated in the base diffusion layers. As such it might be less efficient to have the programming transistor in a layer far above. An alternative embodiment of the current invention is to use Through-Silicon-Via 816 to connect the configurable logic device and its Flash devices to an underlying structure 804 comprising the programming transistors.
In this document, various terms have been used while generally referring to the element. For example, “house” refers to the first monocrystalline layer with its transistors and metal interconnection layer or layers. This first moncrystalline layer has also been referred to as the main wafer and sometimes as the acceptor wafer and sometimes as the base wafer.
Some embodiments of the present invention may include alternative techniques to build IC (Integrated Circuit) devices including techniques and methods to construct 3D IC systems. Some embodiments of the present invention may enable device solutions with far less power consumption than prior art. These device solutions could be very useful for the growing application of mobile electronic devices such as mobile phones, smart phone, cameras and the like. For example, incorporating the 3D IC semiconductor devices according to some embodiments of the present invention within these mobile electronic devices could provide superior mobile units that could operate much more efficiently and for a much longer time than with prior art technology.
3D ICs according to some embodiments of the present invention could also enable electronic and semiconductor devices with much a higher performance due to the shorter interconnect as well as semiconductor devices with far more complexity via multiple levels of logic and providing the ability to repair or use redundancy. The achievable complexity of the semiconductor devices according to some embodiments of the present invention could far exceed what was practical with the prior art technology. These advantages could lead to more powerful computer systems and improved systems that have embedded computers.
Some embodiments of the present invention may also enable the design of state of the art electronic systems at a greatly reduced non-recurring engineering (NRE) cost by the use of high density 3D FPGAs or various forms of 3D array base ICs with reduced custom masks as been described previously. These systems could be deployed in many products and in many market segments. Reduction of the NRE may enable new product family or application development and deployment early in the product lifecycle by lowering the risk of upfront investment prior to a market being developed. The above advantages may also be provided by various mixes. One example mix may be reducing NRE by using generic masks for layers of logic and other generic masks for layers of memories and building a very complex system using the repair technology to overcome the inherent yield limitation. Another example mix could be building a 3D FPGA and adding on it 3D layers of customizable logic and memory so that the end system could have field programmable logic on top of the factory customized logic. In fact, there are many ways to mix the many innovative elements to form 3D IC to support the need of an end system and to provide the end system with a competitive edge. Such end system could be electronic-based products or other type of systems that include some level of embedded electronics, such as, for example, cars, remote controlled vehicle, etc.
It will also be appreciated by persons of ordinary skill in the art that the present invention is not limited to what has been particularly shown and described hereinabove. Rather, the scope of the present invention includes both combinations and sub-combinations of the various features described hereinabove as well as modifications and variations which would occur to such skilled persons upon reading the foregoing description. Thus the invention is to be limited only by the appended claims.
This application claims priority of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/577,532, 12/423,214, 12/706,520, 12/792,673, 12/847,911 and 12/849,272, the contents of which are incorporated by reference.
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