Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Yi-Tung Yen

Chia-Der Chang

Chien-Chih Chou

Yu-Ching Chang

Chai-Der Chang

Tsu-Yu Chu

A semiconductor device includes a semiconducting substrate having CMOS transistors thereon. A composite etch stop layer including a lowermost silicon oxynitride portion and an uppermost silicon nitride portion is disposed on the semiconducting substrate including the CMOS transistors. At least one dielectric layer is on the composite etch stop layer. A first contact opening extends to a first level through the composite etch stop layer thickness and a second contact opening extends to a second level deeper than the first level through the composite etch stop layer.

Method for forming an improved low power SRAM contact

A method of forming contact openings in a semiconductor device including providing a semiconducting substrate; forming an etch stop layer on said semiconducting substrate; forming a dielectric layer on said etch stop layer; forming a bottom anti-reflective coating (BARC) on said dielectric layer; forming and patterning a mask on said BARC layer; and, forming at least a first contact opening exposing said etch stop layer by a first etching process.

A method of planarizing wafers using shallow trench isolation is described. The method uses a very hard polishing pad and chemical mechanical polishing with no additional etching required. Trenches are formed in a substrate and filled with a trench dielectric, such as silicon dioxide deposited using high density plasma chemical vapor deposition. A layer of resist is then formed on the layer of trench dielectric. The wafer is then planarized using chemical mechanical polishing and a polishing pad having a hardness of at least Shore &ldquo;D&rdquo; 52. The hard polishing pad avoids scratch marks on the trench dielectric, the substrate surface, or any other materials deposited on the substrate surface.

Planarization method for deep sub micron shallow trench isolation process

A method for making advanced guard rings in a stacked film on logic/merged DRAM circuits using a novel mask design is achieved. After forming a patterned amorphous silicon (a-Si) layer that has blanket portions over the logic region, a stacked film is deposited over the a-Si layer and extending over the edge and on the memory region. A first photoresist etch mask is used to pattern FET gate electrodes in the stacked film, and the etch mask includes a portion having a minimum width W over the edge of the a-Si layer to form a wide guard ring. This wide guard ring replaces a narrow guard ring that inadvertently forms during conventional processing and that is susceptible to peeling and particle contamination of the wafer. A second photoresist etch mask is used to pattern the a-Si layer to form FET gate electrodes over the logic region. The remaining process steps commonly practiced in the industry are carried out to complete the logic/merged DRAM circuit without the peeling and contamination that results from a narrow guard ring.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Yi-Tung Yen