Globalfoundries Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Applied Materials, Inc.

Globalfoundries U.S. Inc.

Andre P Labonte

Ruilong Xie

Lars W Liebmann

Su Chen Fan

Chanro Park

Sanjay C Mehta

Guillaume Bouche

Nigel Graeme Cave

Ludovic Godet

Daniel Chanemougame

Xunyuan Zhang

Vimal Kumar Kamineni

Levent Colak

Andreas Knorr

Mark V Raymond

Gabriel Padron Wells

Kangguo Cheng

Veeraraghavan S Basker

Julien Frougier

Min Gyu Sung

Hoon Sik Kim

Rutger Meyer Timmerman Thijssen

Nicholas V Licausi

Ryan Ryoung-Han Kim

Xiang Hu

Andy Chih-Hung Wei

David E Brown

Balasubramanian S Pranatharthi Haran

Catherine B Labelle

Jing Wan

Nicholas LiCausi

Embodiments described herein provide for methods of forming optical device structures. The methods utilize rotation of a substrate, to have the optical device structures formed thereon, and tunability of etch rates of a patterned resist disposed over the substrate and one of a device layer or the substrate to form the optical device structures without multiple lithographic patterning steps and angled etch steps.

Method for manufacturing optical device structures

A method of fabricating an interconnect structure of a semiconductor device is provided having a first conductive line and forming a second conductive line over the first conductive line. A via opening is formed in the second conductive line, and the via opening is aligned over the first conductive line. The via opening is filled with a conductive material to form an interconnect via and an upper portion of the interconnect via forms a portion of the second conductive line.

Interconnect structures of semiconductor devices having a via structure through an upper conductive line

A method for forming a device structure is disclosed. The method of forming the device structure includes forming a variable-depth structure in a device material layer using cyclic-etch process techniques. A plurality of device structures is formed in the variable-depth structure to define vertical or slanted device structures therein. The variable-depth structure and the vertical or slanted device structures are formed using an etch process.

Methods of forming variable-depth device structures

A gate tie-down structure includes a gate structure including a gate conductor and gate spacers and inner spacers formed on the gate spacers. Trench contacts are formed on sides of the gate structure. An interlevel dielectric (ILD) has a thickness formed over the gate structure. A horizontal connection is formed within the thickness of the ILD over an active area connecting the gate conductor and one of the trench contacts over one of the inner spacers.

Gate tie-down enablement with inner spacer

An interconnect structure of an integrated circuit and a method of forming the same, the interconnect structure including: at least two metal lines laterally spaced from one another in a dielectric layer, the metal lines having a top surface below a top surface of the dielectric layer; a hardmask layer on an upper portion of sidewalls of the metal lines, the hardmask layer having a portion extending between the metal lines, the extending portion being below the top surface of the metal lines; and at least one fully aligned via on the top surface of a given metal line.

Interconnect structure having reduced resistance variation and method of forming same

Embodiments of the invention are directed to a method of forming an integrated circuit (IC). The method includes forming a first transistor and a second transistor over a substrate. The first transistor includes a first gate structure having a first gate spacer, and the second transistor includes a second gate structure having a second gate spacer. A top portion of the first gate spacer is replaced with a first sacrificial gate spacer region, and a top portion of the second gate spacer is replaced with a second sacrificial gate spacer region. A source or drain (S/D) conductive plug trench and a S/D cap trench are formed in the dielectric region of the IC and positioned over a S/D region of the first transistor. A volume of the S/D cap trench is increased by removing the first sacrificial gate spacer region and/or the second sacrificial gate spacer region.

Sacrificial gate spacer regions for gate contacts formed over the active region of a transistor

The present disclosure generally relates to semiconductor structures and, more particularly, to contact structures and methods of manufacture. The structure includes: a plurality of gate structures comprising source and drain regions and sidewall spacers; contacts connecting to at least one gate structure of the plurality of gate structures; and at least one metallization feature connecting to the source and drain regions and extending over the sidewall spacers.

Contact structures

A device including a self-aligned buried contact between spacer liners and isolated from a pull down (PD)/pull-up (PU) shared gate and an n-channel field-effect transistor (NFET) pass gate (PG) gate and method of production thereof. Embodiments include first and second high-k/metal gate (HKMG) structures over a first portion of a substrate, and a third HKMG structure over a second portion of the substrate; an inter-layer dielectric (ILD) over a portion of the substrate and on sidewalls of the first, second and third HKMG structures; a spacer liner on sidewalls of the ILD between the second and third HKMG structures; and a buried contact layer between the spacer liner and in a portion of the substrate.

Self-aligned buried contact for vertical field-effect transistor and method of production thereof

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device is provided including forming raised source and drain regions on a semiconductor layer, forming a first insulating layer over the semiconductor layer, forming a first contact to one of the source and drain regions in the first insulating layer, forming a second insulating layer over the first contact, forming a trench in the second insulating layer to expose the first contact, removing a portion of the first contact below the trench, thereby forming a recessed surface of the first contact, removing a portion of the first insulating layer, thereby forming a recess in the trench and exposing a portion of a sidewall of the first contact below the recessed surface of the first contact, and filling the trench and the recess formed in the trench with a contact material to form a second contact in contact with the first contact.

Contacting source and drain of a transistor device

A local interconnect structure includes a substrate having a dielectric layer and at least one semiconductor contact structure embedded in the dielectric layer. An electrically conductive material is deposited in a non-eroded contact trench that defines at least one electrically conducive contact via. The contact via extends from a first end that is flush with an upper surface of the dielectric layer to a second end that contacts the at one semiconductor contact structure. A local conductive material layer is formed in the dielectric layer and contacts the first end of the contact via. The non-eroded contact trench includes sharp upper corners formed at approximately ninety degrees with respect to the first end of the contact via.

Local interconnect structure including non-eroded contact via trenches

A method for forming a gate tie-down includes opening up a cap layer and recessing gate spacers on a gate structure to expose a gate conductor; forming inner spacers on the gate spacers; etching contact openings adjacent to sides of the gate structure down to a substrate below the gate structures; and forming trench contacts on sides of the gate structure. An interlevel dielectric (ILD) is deposited on the gate conductor and the trench contacts and over the gate structure. The ILD is opened up to expose the trench contact on one side of the gate structure and the gate conductor. A second conductive material provides a self-aligned contact down to the trench contact on the one side and to form a gate contact down to the gate conductor and a horizontal connection within the ILD over an active area between the gate conductor and the self-aligned contact.

Disclosed are methods of forming an integrated circuit (IC) structure with self-aligned middle of the line (MOL) contacts and the resulting IC structure. In the methods, different, selectively etchable, dielectric materials are used above the gate level for: a dielectric cap above a gate; a dielectric spacer above a gate sidewall spacer and laterally surrounding the dielectric cap; and a stack of dielectric layer(s) that covers the dielectric cap, the dielectric spacer, and metal plugs positioned laterally adjacent to the dielectric spacer and above source/drain regions. Due to the different dielectric materials, subsequently formed gate and source/drain contacts are self-aligned in two dimensions to provide protection against the occurrence of opens between wires and/or vias in the first BEOL metal level and the contacts and to further provide protection against the occurrence of shorts between the gate contact and any metal plugs and between the source/drain contacts and the gate.

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Mechanicville, NY, United States of America

Andre P Labonte