Agere Systems Inc.

Agere Systems Guardian Corp.

Minesh Amrat Patel

Pradip Kumar Roy

Sundar Srinivasan Chetlur

Yi Ma

Michael Scott Carroll

Sidhartha Sen

Vivek Saxena

Carlos M Chacon

Jennifer M McKinley

Jonathan Zhong-Ning Zhou

Peyman Sana

Brian E Harding

A low-thermal budget, silicon-rich silicon nitride film may include a concentration of hydrogen in Si&#x2014;H bonds being at least 1.5 times as great as a concentration of hydrogen in N&#x2014;H bonds. The silicon nitride film suppresses boron diffusion in boron-doped devices when such devices are processed using high-temperature processing operations that conventionally urge boron diffusion. The low-thermal budget, silicon-rich silicon nitride film may be used to form spacers in CMOS devices, it may be used as part of a dielectric stack to prevent shorting in tightly packed SRAM arrays, and it may be used in BiCMOS processing to form a base nitride layer and/or nitride spacers isolating the base from the emitter. Furthermore the low-thermal budget, silicon-rich silicon nitride film may remain covering the CMOS structure while bipolar devices are being formed, as it suppresses the boron diffusion that results in boron penetration and boron-doped poly depletion.

Silicon-rich low thermal budget silicon nitride for integrated circuits

The present invention provides a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device that includes incorporation of a hydrogen isotope at a relatively high processing temperature during gate oxidation or polysilicon gate electrode deposition to maximize incorporation of hydrogen isotope at interfaces deliberately created during oxidation (such as graded oxidation) as multilayered poly/alpha-silicon deposition process.

Method of creating hydrogen isotope reservoirs in a semiconductor device

A method for deuterium sintering to improve the hot carrier aging of an integrated circuit includes (a) providing a partially fabricated integrated circuit structure comprising a semiconductor substrate and a dielectric layer formed on at least a portion of the substrate, the dielectric layer having at least one conductive material via plug formed therein and (b) sintering the structure in the presence of a gas comprising deuterium-containing components at high temperatures prior to a metallization layer being deposited on the structure.

Methods for deuterium sintering

The present invention provides a method of determining a trap density of a semiconductor substrate/dielectric interface. In one embodiment, the method comprises measuring a current within a semiconductor substrate resulting from a flow of carriers from traps located near the interface, wherein the measured current is a function of the number of traps located at the interface, and determining the trap density as a function of the measured current.

Method of determining a trap density of a semiconductor/oxide interface by a contactless charge technique

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Orlando, FL, United States of America

Minesh Amrat Patel