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:
Sep. 02, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 05, 2001
Seng-Keong Victor Lim, Singapore, SG;
Feng Chen, Singapore, SG;
Alex See, Singapore, SG;
Wang Ling Goh, Singapore, SG;
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing LTD, Singapore, SG;
Abstract
A method of manufacturing a shallow trench isolation using a polishing step with reduced dishing. A pad layer, a polish stop layer, a buffer layer and a hard mask layer are formed over a substrate. The hard mask layer has a hard mask opening. We etch a trench opening in the buffer layer, the polish stop layer, the pad layer and form a trench in the substrate using the hard mask layer as an etch mask. We form an oxide trench liner layer along the sidewalls of the trench and an oxide buffer liner layer on the sidewalls of the buffer layer using a thermal oxidation. The hard mask layer prevents the oxidation of the top surface of the buffer layer during the oxidation of the oxide trench liner. This prevents the buffer layer from being consumed by the oxidation and leaves the buffer layer to act in the subsequent chemical-mechanical polish (CMP) step. Next, an insulating layer is formed at least partially filling the trench. The insulating layer is chemical-mechanical polished using the polish stop layer as a stop layer. The buffer layer acts to prevent field oxide dishing during the chemical-mechanical polish.