Globalfoundries Inc.

Cirrus Logic Inc.

T-ram Semiconductor, Inc.

Globalfoundries U.S. Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Motorola Corporation

Stmicroelectronics Gmbh

Marc Laurent Tarabbia

Mahbub Rashed

Suresh Venkatesan

Chinh Nguyen

Subramani Kengeri

Irene Y Lin

Jeff Kim

Scott C Johnson

Steven R Soss

Shanjen Pan

Jason Eugene Stephens

Nader Magdy Hindawy

Christian Larsen

Anurag Mittal

David Doman

Jongwook Kye

Alexander Barr

Roderick Alan Augur

Jerome Ciavatti

Rajesh N Gupta

Yunfei Deng

Zhonghai Shi

Yuansheng Ma

Scott Warrick

Roderick Miller

Rod Augur

Seung-Hyun Rhee

John L Melanson

Scott T Robins

Frank Scott Johnson

John Christopher Tucker

Lingli Zhang

Juhan Kim

Vamsikrishna Parupalli

Gregory Allen Northrop

Kevin J Yang

Tuhin Guha Neogi

Olivier Menut

Norman Chen

Scott Allan Woodford

Maxim Ershov

Geoffrey B Hall

Yuyang Sun

Joseph Y Chan

Kathryn Rose Holland

Justin Dougherty

Jian Liu

Ingolf Lorenz

Yaoyu Pang

Mohamed Salama

Chidambaram G Kallingal

James B Gullette

Xiang Qi

Ying Ying

Steve Soss

Larry Ho

Jeremy Babcock

James Benjamin Gullette

Winston S Blackley

Scott Johnson

An integrated circuit (IC) substrate manufacturing process provides time-dependent device characteristic variation due to hydrogen absorption by including one or more gettering layers near the devices that would otherwise absorb hydrogen and exhibit the variation as the hydrogen migrates in the devices. The method includes forming or mounting the devices on a top surface of the semiconductor wafer in die areas of the substrate, forming semiconductor structures in the semiconductor die areas, forming a getter layer above or adjacent to the devices in the die areas, and processing the wafer with one or more processes exposing the wafer to vapor having a hydrogen content, whereby an amount of hydrogen absorbed by the devices is reduced by presence of the getter layer. The method produces wafers including semiconductor dies with reduced hydrogen absorption by the devices and packaged ICs including the dies.

Integrated circuit with getter layer for hydrogen entrapment

A semiconductor device including four transistors. Gates of first and third transistors extend longitudinally as part of a first linear strip. Gates of second and fourth transistors extend longitudinally as part of a second linear strip parallel to and spaced apart from first linear strip. Aligned first and second gate cut isolations separate gates of first and second transistor from gates of third transistor and fourth transistor respectively. First and second CB layers connect to the gate of first transistor and second transistor respectively. CA layer extends longitudinally between first end and second end of CA layer connects to CB layers. CB layers are electrically connected to gates of first transistor adjacent first end of CA layer and second transistor adjacent second end of CA layer respectively. CA layer extends substantially parallel to first and second linear strips and is substantially perpendicular to first and second CB layers.

Semiconductor device with transistor local interconnects

A semiconductor device is provided for implementing at least one logic element. The semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate. The first transistor and a second transistor are formed on the semiconductor substrate. Each transistor comprises a source, a drain, and a gate. The gate of the first transistor extends longitudinally as part of a first linear strip and the gate of the second transistor extends longitudinally as part of the second linear strip parallel to and spaced apart from the first linear strip. A first CB layer forms a local interconnect layer electrically connected to the gate of the first transistor. A second CB layer forms a local interconnect layer electrically connected to the gate of the second transistor. A CA layer forms a local interconnect layer extending longitudinally between a first end and a second end of the CA layer. The CA layer is electrically connected to the first and second CB layers. The first CB layer is electrically connected adjacent the first end of the CA layer and the second layer is electrically connected adjacent the second end of the CA layer. The first CB layer, the second CB layer and the CA layer are disposed between a first metal layer and the semiconductor substrate. The first metal layer being disposed above each source, each drain, and each gate of the first and second transistors. The CA layer extends substantially parallel to the first and second linear strips and is substantially perpendicular to the first and second CB layers. At least one via selectively provides an electrical connection between the CA or CB layers and the at least one metal layer.

A method may include forming a metal pattern in a metal layer of a fabricated integrated circuit device and under a target bump of the fabricated integrated circuit device, wherein the metal pattern has an inner shape and an outer field such that a void space in the metal layer is created between the inner shape and the outer field and approximately centering the void space on an outline of an under-bump metal formed under the target bump with a keepout distance from the inner shape and the outer field on either side of the outline such that the metal minimizes local variations in mechanical stress on underlying structures within the fabricated integrated circuit device.

Metal layer patterning for minimizing mechanical stress in integrated circuit packages

Transistors may be manufactured with a shared drain to reduce die area consumed by circuitry. In one example, two transistors can be manufactured that include two body regions that abut a shared drain region. The two transistors can be independently operated by coupling terminals to a source and a gate for each transistor and the shared drain. Characteristics of the two transistors can be controlled by adjusting feature sizes, such as overlap between the gate and the shared drain for a transistor. In particular, two transistors with different voltage requirements can be manufactured using a shared drain structure, which can be useful in amplifier circuitry and in particular Class-D amplifiers.

Dual device semiconductor structures with shared drain

A vertical structure may be used as a high density capacitance for an integrated circuit. These thin vertical structures can be configured to operate as an insulator in a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor. The vertical structures may be manufactured using three-dimensional semiconductor manufacturing technology, such as FinFET (fin field effect transistor) technology and manufacturing processes. The capacitors based on thin vertical structures may be integrated with other circuitry that can utilize the thin vertical structures, such as FinFET transistors.

High density capacitors formed from thin vertical semiconductor structures such as FINFETs

A semiconductor device includes a substrate with first and second transistors disposed thereon and including sources, drains, and gates, wherein the first and second gates extend longitudinally as part of linear strips that are parallel to and spaced apart. The device further includes a first CB layer forming a local interconnect electrically connected to the first gate, a second CB layer forming a local interconnect electrically connected to the second gate, and a CA layer forming a local interconnect extending longitudinally between first and second ends of the CA layer. The first and second CB layers and the CA layer are disposed between a first metal layer and the substrate. The first metal layer is disposed above each source, drain, and gate of the transistors, The CA layer extends parallel to the first and second linear strips and is substantially perpendicular to the first and second CB layers.

A dual-gate metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) may include a MOSFET having a channel region, a drain, and a source, a first gate formed proximate to the channel region, a drain extension region formed proximate to the drain, and a second gate formed proximate to the drain extension region.

Dual gate metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor

Errors in measurements of a resistor to monitor current through a speaker may be corrected to improve the accuracy, performance, or quality of other signals affected by the measurement. Error may occur in the current measurement resulting from variations in measurements involving the resistor, such as errors based on the sense resistor's response to temperature or voltage differential. Correcting the measurement errors can prevent the overcurrent condition from occurring, and otherwise improve audio output from the speaker. Thus, a method for correcting measurements in a speaker monitoring circuit may include monitoring a current through a speaker by receiving a measurement that is correlated to the current output through the speaker; and correcting the measurement for one or more inaccuracies in the measurement.

Correction for speaker monitoring

An integrated sense resistor within an integrated circuit (IC) may be surroundingly positioned near and coupled to a connection such as a pin or ball. The integrated sense resistor may be shaped such that more surface area of the integrated sense resistor is coupled to be positioned closer or in actual contact with the pin or ball than conventional straight layered integrated sense resistor solutions. The integrated sense resistor may be a non-straight shape that entirely surrounds or wraps around a connection to the pin or ball, such as a circular or oval shape, a box or rectangular shape, a triangular shape, or a polygonal shape. The integrated sense resistor may be a non-straight shape that partially surrounds a connection to the pin or ball, such as an open-circular or semi-circular shape, an open-sided box or rectangular shape, an open-sided triangular shape, an angular shape, or an open curved shape.

Sense resistor surroundingly positioned near or around and integrated with an output connection

A vertical structure may be manufactured in a substrate of an integrated circuit, and that vertical structure used to form a high density capacitance for the integrated circuit. These thin vertical structures can be configured to operate as an insulator in a capacitor. The vertical structures may be manufactured using three-dimensional semiconductor manufacturing technology, such as FinFET (fin field effect transistor) technology and manufacturing processes. The capacitors based on thin vertical structures may be integrated with other circuitry that can utilize the thin vertical structures, such as FinFET transistors.

High density capacitors formed from thin vertical semiconductor structures such as FinFETs

A fully depleted region may be used to reduce poly-to-substrate parasitic capacitance in an electronic device with poly-silicon layer. When the fully depleted region is located at least partially beneath the electronic device, an additional parasitic capacitance is formed between the fully depleted region and the substrate region. This additional parasitic capacitance is coupled in series with a first parasitic capacitance between a poly-silicon layer of the electronic device and the doped region. The series combination of the first parasitic capacitance and the additional parasitic capacitance results in an overall reduction of parasitic capacitance experience by an electronic device. The structure may include two doped regions on sides of the electronic device to form a fully depleted region based on lateral interaction of dopant in the doped regions and the substrate region.

Fully depleted region for reduced parasitic capacitance between a poly-silicon layer and a substrate region

A JFET structure may be formed such that the channel region is isolated from the substrate to reduce parasitic capacitance. For example, instead of using a deep well as part of a gate structure for the JFET, the deep well may be used as an isolation region from the surrounding substrate. As a result, the channel in the JFET may be pinched laterally between doped regions located between the source and the drain of the JFET. In other example embodiments, the channel may be pinched vertically and the isolation between the JFET structure and the substrate is maintained. A JFET structure with improved isolation from the substrate may be employed in some embodiments as a low-noise amplifier. In particular, the low-noise amplifier may be coupled to small signal devices, such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based microphones.

Pinched doped well for a junction field effect transistor (JFET) isolated from the substrate

A semiconductor device is provided for implementing at least one logic element. The semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate with a first transistor and a second transistor formed on the semiconductor substrate. Each of the transistors comprises a source, a drain, and a gate. A trench silicide layer electrically connects one of the source or the drain of the first transistor to one of the source or the drain of the second transistor.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Marc Laurent Tarabbia