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:
Oct. 22, 2002
Filed:
Apr. 21, 1999
Chorng-Ping Chang, Berkeley Heights, NJ (US);
Kin Ping Cheung, Hoboken, NJ (US);
Chien-Shing Pai, Bridgewater, NJ (US);
Wei Zhu, Warren, NJ (US);
Agere Systems Guardian Corp., Orlando, FL (US);
Abstract
It has been discovered that for semiconductor devices such as MOSFETs, there is significant capacitive coupling in the front-end structure, i.e., the structure from and including the device substrate up to the first metal interconnect level. The invention therefore provides a device comprising a silicon substrate, an isolation structure in the substrate (e.g., shallow trench isolation), an active device structure (e.g., a transistor structure), a dielectric layer over the active device structure, and a metal interconnect layer over the dielectric layer (metal-1 level). At least one of the dielectric components of the front-end structure comprise a material exhibiting a dielectric constant less than 3.5. This relatively low dielectric constant material reduces capacitive coupling in the front-end structure, thereby providing improved properties in the device.