Intel Corporation

Leonard P Guler

Tahir Ghani

Biswajeet Guha

Charles Henry Wallace

William Hsu

Swaminathan Sivakumar

Paul Anton Nyhus

Mohit K Haran

Michael Harper

Dax M Crum

Mohammad Hasan

Bruce E Beattie

Jun Sung Kang

Reken Patel

Manish Chandhok

Elliot Tan

Oleg Golonzka

Richard E Schenker

Mark Armstrong

Mauro J Kobrinsky

Szuya S Liao

Nick Lindert

Eungnak Han

Urusa Alaan

Gurpreet Singh

Curtis W Ward

Chanaka D Munasinghe

Christopher Kenyon

Krishna Kumar Ganesan

Sukru Yemenicioglu

Souvik Chakrabarty

Makram Abd El Qader

Tsuan-Chung Chang

Marko Radosavljevic

Walid M Hafez

Noriyuki Sato

Nicole K Thomas

Florian Gstrein

Christopher P Auth

David N Shykind

Gopinath Bhimarasetti

Saurabh Morarka

Clifford L Ong

Shu Zhou

Vyom Sharma

Thoe Michaelos

Sean Michael Pursel

Chul-Hyun Lim

Vivek Thirtha

Nitesh Kumar

Jinnie Aloysius

Stephen D Snyder

Suzanne S Rich

Gobind Bisht

Jonathan Laib

Robert Joachim

Shengsi Liu

Benjamin Kriegel

Niels Zussblatt

Jeffrey Miles Tan

Gilbert W Dewey

Glenn A Glass

Stephen M Cea

Elijah V Karpov

Rami Hourani

Nadia M Rahhal-Orabi

Nafees Kabir

Andy Chih-Hung Wei

Shem Ogadhoh

Stephanie A Bojarski

Pratik A Patel

Allen B Gardiner

Daniel Ouellette

Zheng Guo

Sam Sivakumar

Marni Nabors

Nikhil Mehta

James Jeong

Martin Weiss

Zachary Geiger

Ralph Thomas Troeger

Conor P Puls

Marvin Young Paik

Smita Shridharan

Hossam A Abdallah

Apratim Dhar

Joseph D'silva

Shakuntala Sundararajan

William T Blanton

Achala Bhuwalka

Clifford J Engel

Eirc A Karl

Shaun Mills

Sikandar Abbas

Peter P Sun

Virupaxi Goornavar

Dario Farias

Chia-Ho Tsai

Chetana Singh

Leah Shoer

Techniques are provided herein to form an integrated circuit having gate cut structures or plug structures between source or drain regions, with an angled cut made to the top portion of the structures. In an example, a semiconductor device includes a semiconductor region extending between source and drain regions, and a gate structure extending over the semiconductor region. A gate cut structure is present adjacent to the semiconductor device and interrupts the gate structure. The gate cut structure has a first width along a first plane that extends through the semiconductor region and a second width along a second plane parallel to the first plane and above the semiconductor region, where the first width is greater than the second width. Similar angled plug structures may be provided adjacent to the source and drain regions to increase the landing area made to the metal contacts on the source and drain regions.

Angled gate or diffusion plugs

Gate-all-around integrated circuit structures having backside contact with enhanced area relative to an epitaxial source or drain region are described. For example, an integrated circuit structure includes a first vertical arrangement of nanowires and a second vertical arrangement of nanowires. A gate stack is over the first and second vertical arrangements of nanowires. First epitaxial source or drain structures are at ends of the first vertical arrangement of nanowires. Second epitaxial source or drain structures are at ends of the second vertical arrangement of nanowires. A conductive structure is vertically beneath and in contact with one of the first epitaxial source or drain structures. The conductive structure is along an entirety of a bottom of the one of the first epitaxial source or drain structures, and the conductive structure can also be along a portion of sides of one of the first epitaxial source or drain structures.

Gate-all-around integrated circuit structures having backside contact with enhanced area relative to epitaxial source

Integrated circuit (IC) static random-access memory (SRAM) bit-cell structures comprising pass-gate transistors having a different number of active channel regions than the number of active channel regions in pull-down transistors. A pass-gate transistor with fewer active channel regions than a pull-down transistor may reduce read instability of an SRAM bit-cell, and/or reduce overhead associated with read assist circuitry coupled to the bit-cell. In some examples, one or more pass-gate transistor channel regions are impurity doped or removed from either a top side or bottom side of the pass-gate transistors to depopulate the number of active channel regions relative to a pull-down transistor.

SRAM with channel count contrast for greater read stability

Techniques are provided herein to form semiconductor devices that use uniform topside dielectric plugs as masking structures to form conductive contacts to various source or drain regions. In an example, a plurality of semiconductor devices each include one or more semiconductor regions extending in a first direction between corresponding source or drain regions. The source or drain regions are adjacent to one another along a second direction different from the first direction. Conductive contacts are formed over the source or drain regions of the semiconductor devices. A dielectric fill is between one or more adjacent pairs of conductive contacts and dielectric masking structures having a substantially uniform thickness are present over the dielectric fill between adjacent pairs of conductive contacts. This uniform thickness characteristic applies to all of the masking structures regardless of their length along the second direction.

Topside plugs for epitaxial contact formation

Contact over active gate (COAG) structures with uniform and conformal gate insulating cap layers, and methods of fabricating contact over active gate (COAG) structures using uniform and conformal gate insulating cap layers, are described. In an example, an integrated circuit structure includes a gate structure. An epitaxial source or drain structure is laterally spaced apart from the gate structure. A dielectric spacer is laterally between the gate structure and the epitaxial source or drain structure, the dielectric spacer having an uppermost surface below an uppermost surface of the gate structure. A gate insulating cap layer is on the uppermost surface of the gate structure and along upper portions of sides of the gate structure, the gate insulating cap layer distinct from the dielectric spacer.

Contact over active gate structures with uniform and conformal gate insulating cap layers for advanced integrated circuit structure fabrication

Integrated circuit structures having recessed self-aligned deep boundary vias are described. For example, an integrated circuit structure includes a plurality of gate lines. A plurality of trench contacts extends over a plurality of source or drain structures, individual ones of the plurality of trench contacts alternating with individual ones of the plurality of gate lines. A backside metal routing layer is extending beneath one or more of the plurality of gate lines and beneath one or more of the plurality of trench contacts. A conductive structure couples the backside metal routing layer to one of the one or more of the plurality of trench contacts. The conductive structure includes a pillar portion in contact with the one of the one or more of the plurality of trench contacts, the pillar portion on a line portion, the line portion in contact with and extending along the backside metal routing layer.

Integrated circuit structure with recessed self-aligned deep boundary via

A structure includes a first vertical stack of horizontal nanowires having a first width. A second vertical stack of horizontal nanowires is spaced apart from and parallel with the first vertical stack of horizontal nanowires and has the first width. A first gate structure includes a first gate structure portion over the first vertical stack of horizontal nanowires, a second gate structure portion over the second vertical stack of horizontal nanowires, and a gate cut between the first gate structure portion and the second gate structure portion. A third vertical stack of horizontal nanowires has a second width greater than the first width. A fourth vertical stack of horizontal nanowires is spaced apart from and parallel with the third vertical stack of horizontal nanowires and has the second width. A second gate structure is continuous over the third vertical stack of horizontal nanowires and over the fourth vertical stack of horizontal nanowires.

Integrated circuit structures having maximized channel sizing

Fin cuts in neighboring gate and source or drain regions for advanced integrated circuit structure fabrication is described. For example, an integrated circuit structure includes a horizontal stack of semiconductor nanowire portions. A dielectric gate spacer is vertically over the horizontal stack of semiconductor nanowire portions. A gate isolation structure is laterally adjacent to a first side of the horizontal stack of semiconductor nanowire portions. A source or drain isolation structure is laterally adjacent to a second side of the horizontal stack of semiconductor nanowire portions.

Fin cut in neighboring gate and source or drain regions for advanced integrated circuit structure fabrication

Techniques are provided herein to form semiconductor devices having epitaxial diffusion regions (e.g., source and/or drain regions) wrapped by a conductive contact. In an example, a semiconductor device includes a source or drain region and a conductive layer that extends around the source or drain region such that the conductive layer at least contacts the sidewalls of the source or drain region or wraps completely around the source or drain region. In some examples, a conducive contact extends upward through a thickness of an adjacent dielectric layer and contacts the conductive layer from below, thus forming a backside contact. By forming a conductive layer around multiple sides of the source or drain region (rather than just contacting a top or bottom surface) more surface area of the source or drain region is contacted thus providing an improved ohmic contact and a lower overall contact resistance.

Conductive contacts wrapped around epitaxial source or drain regions

Techniques are provided herein to form semiconductor devices having gate cut structures. Adjacent semiconductor devices having semiconductor regions (e.g., fins or nanoribbons) extending in a first direction have a gate structure that extends over the semiconductor regions in a second direction and are separated by a gate cut structure extending in the first direction and interrupting the gate structure. The gate cut structure further extends between adjacent source or drain regions (corresponding to the adjacent semiconductor devices). A dielectric liner on at least a sidewall and/or top surface of the source or drain regions and also extends up a sidewall surface of the gate cut structure. In some cases, the gate structure includes a gate dielectric present on the semiconductor regions, but not present on the gate cut structure. A contact may pass through the liner and at least partially land on a source or drain region.

Gate cut structures

Embodiments disclosed herein include semiconductor devices and methods of making such devices. In an embodiment, the semiconductor device comprises a plurality of stacked semiconductor channels comprising first semiconductor channels and second semiconductor channels over the first semiconductor channels. In an embodiment a spacing is between the first semiconductor channels and the second semiconductor channels. The semiconductor device further comprises a gate dielectric surrounding individual ones of the semiconductor channels of the plurality of stacked semiconductor channels. In an embodiment, a first workfunction metal surrounds the first semiconductor channels, and a second workfunction metal surrounds the second semiconductor channels.

Plug and recess process for dual metal gate on stacked nanoribbon devices

Techniques are provided herein to form semiconductor devices having different pitches, yet maintaining a substantially similar depth to the diffusion regions between the semiconductor regions. In an example, a row of semiconductor devices having semiconductor regions extending in a first direction can include some devices having a diffusion region with a first width in the first direction and some devices having a diffusion region with a second width in the first direction, where the second width is different from the first width. The depths of the diffusion regions having both the first and second widths may be substantially similar (e.g., within 2 nm or less of one another). In some examples, the bottom surface of at least one of the wider diffusion regions has a step profile.

Deep etch processing for transistors having varying pitch

Embodiments described herein may be related to apparatuses, processes, systems, and techniques directed to electrical couplings between epitaxial structures and voltage sources within transistors in SRAM bit cells. Embodiments include direct electrical couplings between a backside contact metal (BM0) and a backside of an epitaxial structure to provide SRAM VCC voltage (SVCC) voltage, as well as electrical connection structures that electrically couple the BM0 to a front side of an epitaxial structure to provide SVCC voltage. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Backside electrical contact for PMOS epitaxial voltage supply

Fin trim plug structures for imparting channel stress are described. In an example, an integrated circuit structure includes a fin including silicon, the fin having a top and sidewalls. The fin has a trench separating a first fin portion and a second fin portion. A first gate structure including a gate electrode is over the top of and laterally adjacent to the sidewalls of the first fin portion. A second gate structure including a gate electrode is over the top of and laterally adjacent to the sidewalls of the second fin portion. An isolation structure is in the trench of the fin, the isolation structure between the first gate structure and the second gate structure. The isolation structure includes a first dielectric material laterally surrounding a recessed second dielectric material distinct from the first dielectric material, the recessed second dielectric material laterally surrounding an oxidation catalyst layer.

Method of fabricating integrated circuits with fin trim plug structures having an oxidation catalyst layer surrounded by a recessed dielectric material

Integrated circuit structures having backside gate tie-down are described. In an example, a structure includes a first vertical stack of horizontal nanowires over a first sub-fin, and a second vertical stack of horizontal nanowires over a second sub-fin, the second vertical stack of horizontal nanowires spaced apart from and parallel with the first vertical stack of horizontal nanowires. A gate structure includes a first gate structure portion over the first vertical stack of horizontal nanowires, wherein the first gate structure extends along an entirety of the first sub-fin. A second gate structure portion is over the second vertical stack of horizontal nanowires, wherein the second gate structure does not extend along an entirety of the second sub-fin. A gate cut is between the first gate structure portion and the second gate structure portion.

Integrated circuit structures having backside gate tie-down

Growing community of inventors

Hillsboro, OR, United States of America

Leonard P Guler