Intel Corporation

Travis W LaJoie

Bernhard Sell

Abhishek A Sharma

Pei-Hua Wang

Chieh-Jen Ku

Van H Le

Tahir Ghani

Jack T Kavalieros

Fatih Hamzaoglu

Allen B Gardiner

Juan G Alzate Vinasco

Hui Jae Yoo

Shem Ogadhoh

Umut Arslan

Juan G Alzate-Vinasco

Noriyuki Sato

Sarah Atanasov

Nikhil Mehta

Akash Garg

Yih Wang

Elliot Tan

Blake C Lin

Shu Zhou

Gregory George

Matthew V Metz

Wilfred Gomes

Arnab Sen Gupta

Julie Rollins

Yu-Wen Huang

Chieh-jen Ku

James D Waldemer

Jared Stoeger

Vinaykumar Hadagali

Willy Rachmady

Aaron D Lilak

Sean T Ma

Mark Armstrong

Miriam Ruth Reshotko

Urusa Alaan

Albert Chen

Pulkit Jain

Tobias Brown-Heft

Thoe Michaelos

Yu-Jin Chen

Ting Chen

Kimberly L Pierce

Jason Peck

Alekhya Nimmagadda

Matthieu Giraud-Carrier

An example IC device includes a frontend layer and a backend layer with a metallization stack. The metallization stack includes a backend memory layer with a plurality of memory cells with backend transistors, and a layer with a plurality of conductive interconnects (e.g., a plurality of conductive lines) and air gaps between adjacent ones of the plurality of interconnects. Providing air gaps in upper metal layers of metallization stacks of IC devices may advantageously reduce parasitic effects in the IC devices because such effects are typically proportional to the dielectric constant of a surrounding medium. In turn, reduction in the parasitic effects may lead to improvements in performance of, or requirements placed on, the backend memory.

Backend memory with air gaps in upper metal layers

A thin film transistor (TFT) structure includes a gate electrode, a gate dielectric layer on the gate electrode, a channel layer including a semiconductor material with a first polarity on the gate dielectric layer. The TFT structure also includes a multi-layer material stack on the channel layer, opposite the gate dielectric layer, an interlayer dielectric (ILD) material over the multi-layer material stack and beyond a sidewall of the channel layer. The TFT structure further includes source and drain contacts through the interlayer dielectric material, and in contact with the channel layer, where the multi-layer material stack includes a barrier layer including oxygen and a metal in contact with the channel layer, where the barrier layer has a second polarity. A sealant layer is in contact with the barrier layer, where the sealant layer and the ILD have a different composition.

Passivation layers for thin film transistors

A device structure includes transistors on a first level in a first region and a first plurality of capacitors on a second level, above the first level, where a first electrode of the individual ones of the first plurality of capacitors are coupled with a respective transistor. The device structure further includes a second plurality of capacitors on the second level in a second region adjacent the first region, where individual ones of the second plurality of capacitors include a second electrode, a third electrode and an insulator layer therebetween, where the second electrode of the individual ones of the plurality of capacitors are coupled with a first interconnect on a third level above the second level, and where the third electrode of the individual ones of the plurality of capacitors are coupled with a second interconnect.

Decoupling capacitors and methods of fabrication

Described herein are two transistor (2T) memory cells that use TFTs as access and gain transistors. When one or both transistors of a 2T memory cell are implemented as TFTs, these transistors may be provided in different layers above a substrate, enabling a stacked architecture. An example 2T memory cell includes an access TFT provided in a first layer over a substrate, and a gain TFT provided in a second layer over the substrate, the first layer being between the substrate and the second layer (i.e., the gain TFT is stacked in a layer above the access TFT). Stacked TFT based 2T memory cells allow increasing density of memory cells in a memory array having a given footprint area, or, conversely, reducing the footprint area of the memory array with a given memory cell density.

Two transistor memory cell using stacked thin-film transistors

Disclosed herein are IC structures with three-dimensional capacitors with double metal electrodes provided in a support structure (e.g., a substrate, a die, a wafer, or a chip). An example three-dimensional capacitor includes first and second capacitor electrodes and a capacitor insulator between them. Each capacitor electrode includes a planar portion extending across the support structure and one or more via portions extending into one or more via openings in the support structure. The capacitor insulator also includes a planar portion and a via portion extending into the via opening(s). The planar portion of the capacitor electrodes are thicker than the via portions. Each capacitor electrode may be deposited using two deposition processes, such as a conformal deposition process for depositing the via portion of the electrode, and a sputter process for depositing the planar portion of the electrode.

Three-dimensional capacitors with double metal electrodes

An integrated circuit (IC) structure in a memory device is described. In an example, the IC structure includes a memory cell including a bitline (BL) extending along a first direction and a channel extending along a second direction above and diagonal to the BL. In the example, a wordline (WL) extends in a third direction perpendicular to the first direction of the BL and intersects with the channel to control a current in the channel along a gated channel length. In some examples, the channel is electrically coupled on a first side to a storage capacitor via a storage node contact (SNC) and on a second side to the BL via a bit line contact (BLC) located on an underside or backside of the channel.

Thin film transistors having a backside channel contact for high density memory

Disclosed herein are transistors, memory cells, and arrangements thereof. For example, in some embodiments, an integrated circuit (IC) structure may include a plurality of transistors, wherein the transistors are distributed in a hexagonally packed arrangement. In another example, in some embodiments, an IC structure may include a memory cell including an axially symmetric transistor coupled to an axially symmetric capacitor, wherein the axis of the transistor is aligned with the axis of the capacitor.

Transistors, memory cells, and arrangements thereof

Thin film transistors fabricated using a spacer as a fin are described. In an example, a method of forming a fin transistor structure includes patterning a plurality of backbone pillars on a semiconductor substrate. The method may then include conformally depositing a spacer layer over the plurality of backbone pillars and the semiconductor substrate. A spacer etch of the spacer layer is then performed to leave a sidewall of the spacer layer on a backbone pillar to form a fin of the fin transistor structure. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Fabrication of thin film fin transistor structure

Integrated circuit structures having differentiated interconnect lines in a same dielectric layer, and methods of fabricating integrated circuit structures having differentiated interconnect lines in a same dielectric layer, are described. In an example, an integrated circuit structure includes an inter-layer dielectric (ILD) layer above a substrate. A plurality of conductive interconnect lines is in the ILD layer. The plurality of conductive interconnect lines includes a first interconnect line having a first height, and a second interconnect line immediately laterally adjacent to but spaced apart from the first interconnect line, the second interconnect line having a second height less than the first height.

Integrated circuit structures having differentiated interconnect lines in a same dielectric layer

Embodiments herein describe techniques for a semiconductor device including a substrate, a first inter-level dielectric (ILD) layer above the substrate, and a second ILD layer above the first ILD layer. A first capacitor and a second capacitor are formed within the first ILD layer and the second ILD layer. A first top plate of the first capacitor and a second top plate of the second capacitor are formed at a boundary between the first ILD layer and the second ILD layer. The first capacitor and the second capacitor are separated by a dielectric area in the first ILD layer. The dielectric area includes a first dielectric area that is coplanar with the first top plate or the second top plate, and a second dielectric area above the first dielectric area and to separate the first top plate and the second top plate. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Capacitor separations in dielectric layers

Passivation layers for thin film transistors and methods of fabrication

Embodiments herein describe techniques for a memory device including at least two memory cells. A first memory cell includes a first storage cell and a first transistor to control access to the first storage cell. A second memory cell includes a second storage cell and a second transistor to control access to the second storage cell. A shared contact electrode is shared between the first transistor and the second transistor, the shared contact electrode being coupled to a source area or a drain area of the first transistor, coupled to a source area or a drain area of the second transistor, and further being coupled to a bit line of the memory device. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Memory architecture with shared bitline at back-end-of-line

A device is disclosed. The device includes a source contact and a drain contact, a first dielectric between the source contact and the drain contact, a channel under the source contact and the drain contact, and a gate electrode below the channel, the gate electrode in an area under the first dielectric that does not laterally extend under the source contact or the drain contact. A second dielectric is above the gate electrode and underneath the channel.

Thin film transistors with offset source and drain structures and process for forming such

Embodiments herein describe techniques for a semiconductor device including a substrate. A first capacitor includes a first top plate and a first bottom plate above the substrate. The first top plate is coupled to a first metal electrode within an inter-level dielectric (ILD) layer to access the first capacitor. A second capacitor includes a second top plate and a second bottom plate, where the second top plate is coupled to a second metal electrode within the ILD layer to access the second capacitor. The second metal electrode is disjoint from the first metal electrode. The first capacitor is accessed through the first metal electrode without accessing the second capacitor through the second metal electrode. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Capacitor connections in dielectric layers

Described herein are embedded dynamic random-access memory (eDRAM) memory cells and arrays, as well as corresponding methods and devices. An exemplary eDRAM memory array implements a memory cell that uses a thin-film transistor (TFT) as a selector transistor. One source/drain (S/D) electrode of the TFT is coupled to a capacitor for storing a memory state of the cell, while the other S/D electrode is coupled to a bitline. The bitline may be a shallow bitline in that a thickness of the bitline may be smaller than a thickness of one or more metal interconnects provided in the same metal layer as the bitline but used for providing electrical connectivity for components outside of the memory array. Such a bitline may be formed in a separate process than said one or more metal interconnects. In an embodiment, the memory cells may be formed in a back end of line process.

Thin-film transistor embedded dynamic random-access memory with shallow bitline

Growing community of inventors

Forest Grove, OR, United States of America

Travis W LaJoie