United Microelectronics Corp.

Chih-Ming Huang

Shing-Ren Sheu

Chung-Hsien Wu

Tsu-An Lin

An improved method of preventing copper poisoning in the fabrication of metal interconnects on a semiconductor substrate comprises sequential formation of a copper layer, a first stop layer, a first inter-metal dielectric layer, a second stop layer, and a second inter-metal dielectric layer over the substrate. The second inter-metal dielectric layer and the second stop layer are defined to form an opening. A conformal first glue/barrier layer is formed over the substrate. The first glue/barrier layer and the first inter-metal dielectric layer are patterned to form a via hole below the opening until the first stop layer is exposed. Spacers are formed on sidewalls of the opening and the via hole below the opening. The first stop layer at bottom of the via hole is removed to expose the copper layer.

Method of fabricating Cu interconnects with reduced Cu contamination

A semiconductor read-only memory (ROM) and a method of fabricating the same are provided. The ROM device is structured in such a manner that allows the fabrication to include a fewer number of mask processes. This makes it more cost effective and allows a cycle time that is shorter than that of the prior art. Moreover, the particular structure of the ROM device makes punchthrough less likely to occur between any neighboring pairs of the buried bit lines when the ROM device is further scaled down. The ROM device is constructed on a semiconductor substrate which is partitioned into a peripheral region and a cell region. A plurality of STI structures are formed at predefined locations in both the peripheral region and the cell region. Immediately after this, a first ion-implantation process can be performed on the cell region to form a plurality of buried bit lines. Subsequently, the dielectric isolation layers in all of the STI structures in the cell region are removed, leaving a plurality of empty trenches behind. A conformal insulating layer and a conductive layer are then successively formed over the wafer, and the conductive layer is further selectively removed to form a word line in the cell region and a gate in the peripheral region. In the code implantation process, selected channel regions between the buried bit lines are doped with impurities for code implantation of data into the ROM device.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Chih-Ming Huang