Abstract: A word line is buried beside a vertical semiconductor device. The word line is embedded adjacent to the vertical semiconductor device such that the topography of the word line is substantially planar. The planar features of the buried word line allows further processing to performed over the word line and the vertical transistor. In another embodiment, the vertical semiconductor device is a transistor having a vertically oriented gate. The word line is buried beside the vertically oriented gate, such that the topography of the word line is substantially planar.