Methods of manufacturing gates for preventing shorts between the gates and self-aligned contacts and semiconductor devices having the same

Abstract

A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device, comprising forming a metal gate of a transistor on a substrate by a replacement metal gate process, wherein an insulating layer is formed on the substrate adjacent the metal gate, forming a hard mask on the substrate including the insulating layer and the metal gate, the hard mask including an opening exposing the metal gate, performing a metal pull back process on the substrate to remove a predetermined depth of a top portion of the metal gate, depositing a protective layer on the substrate, including on the hard mask and on top of a remaining portion of the metal gate, and performing chemical mechanical polishing to remove the hard mask and the protective layer, wherein the protective layer formed on top of the remaining portion of the metal gate remains.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.