System and method for suppressing oxide formation
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsChih-Hao Wang, Shang-Chih Chen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for suppressing sub-oxide formation during the manufacturing of semiconductor devices (such as MOSFET transistor) with high-k gate dielectric is disclosed. In one example, the MOSFET transistor includes a gate structure including a high-k gate dielectric and a gate electrode. In this example, the gate structure is covered with a nitride layer that is used to prevent oxygen from entering the structure during processing, yet is sufficiently thin to be effectively transparent to the processing.
Claims23
A semiconductor device, comprising:
- a substrate;
- a gate structure including a dielectric layer and a conductive layer over the substrate;
- and
- a nitride layer overlying the gate structure and at least a portion of the substrate, the nitride layer having a thickness less than 30 Angstroms;
- and
- a sidewall spacer overlying the nitride layer.
A method for creating a semiconductor device, comprising:
- forming a gate structure over a substrate;
- forming a thin layer over sidewalls of the gate structure and over the substrate, the thin layer including a material for suppressing oxidation into the gate structure;
- and
- implanting dopants into the substrate through the thin layer.
A method of making a semiconductor device, comprising,
- forming and patterning a gate structure on a semiconductor substrate, the gate structure including a high-k dielectric and conductor electrode;
- forming a nitride film over the gate structure and the substrate, the nitride film being sufficiently thin to be effectively transparent to a subsequent substrate implantation procedure and being constructed in a manner to block oxygen from entering the gate structure during the subsequent procedure;
- implanting dopants into the substrate through the nitride film;
- and
- forming sidewall spacers on the gate structure and over the nitride film, wherein the formation of the sidewall spacers includes an etch process that not only shapes the sidewall spacers, but also removes at least a portion of the nitride film from over the implanted substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.