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US 7,622,321 B2Granted
High dielectric constant spacer for imagers
AssigneeMicron Technology, Inc.
InventorHoward E. Rhodes
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An imager having gates with spacers formed of a high dielectric material. The high dielectric spacer provides larger fringing fields for charge transfer and improves image lag and charge transfer efficiency.
Claims10
A method of forming a charge coupled device comprising:
- forming adjacent first and second transistors, with respective first and second gate stacks, over at least a portion of a substrate;
- forming a first spacer element formed of a high dielectric constant material over at least one sidewall region of the first gate stack;
- forming a second spacer element formed of a high dielectric constant material over at least one sidewall region of the second gate stack;
- forming an insulator element between and in contact with the first and second spacer elements, the insulator element having a bottommost surface substantially planar to a bottommost surface of the first and second spacer elements;
- and
- forming an overlapping gate over and in contact with the first and second spacer elements.
3 more elements
A method of forming an integrated circuit comprising:
- forming an imager having at least one pixel cell by:
- doping selected portions of a semiconductor substrate;
- forming at least two adjacent gate stacks in association with the doped selected portions;
- forming a high dielectric constant material over all exposed portions of the substrate and the at least two adjacent gate stacks;
- selectively removing portions of the high dielectric constant material from over the substrate and from over upper surfaces of the at least two adjacent gate stacks to form respective spacers over at least a portion of each of the gate stacks;
- forming an insulator between and in contact with the respective spacers, the insulator having a bottommost surface substantially planar to a bottommost surface of the respective spacers;
- and
- forming an overlapping gate over the spacers and insulator, wherein the overlapping gate is in contact with at least two spacers, each spacer being in contact with a respective different gate stack.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.