The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 10, 2026
Filed:
Dec. 07, 2022
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Hsinchu, TW;
Cheng-Yen Tsai, New Taipei City, TW;
Hsin-Yi Lee, Hsinchu City, TW;
Chung-Chiang Wu, Taichung City, TW;
Da-Yuan Lee, Hsinchu County, TW;
Weng Chang, Hsin-Chu, TW;
Ming-Hsing Tsai, Chu-Pei City, TW;
TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD., Hsinchu, TW;
Abstract
A method for providing a pre-deposition treatment (e.g., of a work-function layer) to accomplish work function tuning. In various embodiments, a gate dielectric layer is formed over a substrate, and a work-function metal layer is deposited over the gate dielectric layer. In some embodiments, a first in-situ process including a pre-treatment process of the work-function metal layer is performed. By way of example, the pre-treatment process removes an oxidized layer of the work-function metal layer to form a treated work-function metal layer. In some embodiments, after performing the first in-situ process, a second in-situ process including a deposition process of another metal layer over the treated work-function metal layer is performed.