Texas Instruments Corporation

Kueing-Long Chen

David K Liu

David B Spratt

Bert R Riemenschneider

Richard L Guldi

Ashwin H Shah

Kalipatnam V Rao

A method of forming a semiconductor device includes forming a moat stack outwardly from a substrate, the moat stack comprising a dielectric pad disposed outwardly from the substrate, a silicon buffer structure disposed outwardly from the dielectric pad, and a protective dielectric cap disposed outwardly from the silicon buffer structure. The method further comprises forming a protective sidewall structure outwardly from at least a sidewall of the silicon buffer structure, forming an isolation dielectric region adjacent to the moat stack, after formation of the isolation dielectric region, removing the protective dielectric cap, and forming a conductive gate comprising the silicon buffer structure.

Method of simultaneous fabrication of isolation and gate regions in a semiconductor device

This antifuse includes: a sublithographic conductive pattern (18); an antifuse material (24) overlying said sublithographic conductive pattern (18); and a conductive layer (26) overlying the antifuse material (24) to form a reduced area antifuse (10). Other devices, systems and methods are also disclosed.

Sublithographic antifuse

A device (10) for controlling current through a circuit has an antifuse material (18) separating a first conductor (12) and a second conductor (20). An insulating element (14) and another insulating element (16) further separate the first conductor (12) from the second conductor (20). The antifuse material (18) includes a dopant which raises the band gap and seals off paths in grain boundaries of the antifuse material (18) in order to limit leakage current from flowing between the first conductor (12) and the second conductor (20). When an interconnection is desired, a high voltage pulse is applied across the first conductor (12) and the second conductor (20) to initially break down the antifuse material (18). The breakdown of the antifuse material (18) causes a filament (22) to form between the first conductor (12) and the second conductor (20). The filament (22) creates a conduction path connecting the first conductor (12) and the second conductor (20) electrically together. Additional current is forced through the antifuse material (18) to permanently set the filament (22) in order to interconnect circuit elements coupled to the first conductor (12) and the second conductor (20).

Antifuse device for controlling current in a circuit using an antifuse

An antifuse structure (20) and method of fabrication are provided. A first conductive layer (A) is etched according to a first mask (62a) having a first pattern and according to a second mask (64a) having a second pattern. A first insulative layer (30) is disposed over the first conductive layer (A) and etched according to a third mask (40a) having a third pattern to expose at least one section of the first conductive layer (A). A second insulative layer (26) is disposed adjacent at least one exposed section of the first conductive layer (A). A second conductive layer (1) is disposed over the second insulative layer (26) so that the antifuse structure (20) includes at least one antifuse region (A1) where a section of the second insulative layer (26) is adjacent the first (A) and second (1) conductive layers. The antifuse region (A1) has a sublithographic vertical dimension (t) according to a thickness of the first conductive layer (A). Further, the antifuse region (A1) has a sublithographic horizontal dimension (L) according to an overlap between the first (62a) and second (64a) masks.

Antifuse structure and method of fabrication

A described embodiment of the present invention includes an anti-fuse comprising: a first conductive layer having a horizontal major surface and having a substantially vertical sidewall; a thick insulating layer formed on the horizontal major surface of the first conductive layer; a dielectric layer formed on the vertical sidewall; and a second conductive layer formed on the dielectric layer. In an additional embodiment, the first and/or second conductive layers comprise polycrystalline silicon and a conductive material selected from the group of titanium, tungsten, molybdenum, platinum, titanium silicide, tungsten silicide, molybdenum silicide, platinum silicide, titanium nitride and combinations thereof.

Sidewall anti-fuse structure and method for making

Method and device for controlling current in a circuit

In one described embodiment of the present invention, a method for manufacturing a sublithographic semiconductor feature is disclosed. This method comprises: depositing a feature material on a substrate (14); depositing and patterning a resist material (20) over said feature material; vertically, anisotropically etching said feature material to form a feature pattern (18) with substantially vertical sidewalls underlying said resist material pattern (20); isotropically etching said feature pattern (18) such that said feature pattern (18) sidewalls are undercut from beneath said resist material pattern (20) to form a reduced geometry feature (18) whereby said reduced geometry feature (18) has a geometry less than that of the overlying resist material pattern (20). Another described embodiment comprises an antifuse formed by the above method wherein the antifuse dielectric (24) is a nitride-oxide (N-O) layer. The further advantage gained using this structure is that the programming voltage required is substantially reduced due to the asymmetric current conduction characteristics of the N-O dielectric. This lower programming voltage enhances the scalability of this structure to smaller processes as the need for high voltage transistors is reduced. Other devices, systems and methods are also disclosed.

Sublithographic antifuse method for manufacturing

A field programmable gate array having anti-fuse crosspoints. The input and output circuits of the gate array are especially designed so that the low voltage logic modules are not affected by high programming voltages. Each logic module is designed to be part of the programming circuit, rather than being isolated from it.

Gate array with built-in programming circuitry

The present invention provides a method, and a product made by the same, of fabricating an NPN bipolar transistor of a novel design simultaneously with the fabrication of double polysilicon CMOS/FAMOS devices, on an integrated circuit device. N wells 14 and 16 for the NPN transistor and the PMOS device are fabricated simultaneously. P type material is implanted to form the voltage adjust implant layer 19 of the FAMOS structure, and the base layer 18 of the NPN bipolar transistor, in the same process steps. In the process steps of forming the floating gate structure 36 of the FAMOS transistor, a polysilicon region 34 is also formed on the NPN transistor site. This polysilicon region 34 serves as a self-aligned implant mask during the implant of the base regions 88 of the NPN transistor. N type material is implanted in the same process steps to form the source and drain regions 66 of the FAMOS transistor and the emitter region 64 of the NPN transistor. N type material is implanted in the same process steps into the source and drain regions 86 of the NMOS transistor, and the collector regions 85 of the NPN transistor. P type material is implanted in the same process steps into the source and drain regions of the PMOS transistor 90, and into the base region 88 of the NPN transistor.

Growing community of inventors

Plano, TX, United States of America

Kueing-Long Chen