Patents Examined by Michael Trinh
  • Patent number: 6232136
    Abstract: A display panel is formed using essentially single crystal thin-film material that is transferred to substrates for display fabrication. The transfer includes the step of transferring the semiconductor regions onto a stretchable substrate. The resulting circuit panel can be incorporated into a display panel with a light emitting or liquid crystal material to provide the desired display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 1998
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2001
    Assignee: Kopin Corporation
    Inventors: Paul M. Zavracky, John C. C. Fan, Robert McClelland, Jeffrey Jacobsen, Brenda Dingle
  • Patent number: 6232183
    Abstract: A method for fabricating a flash memory is disclosed, in which a stacked gate structure comprising a floating gate and a control gate on the substrate is first formed. Ions are implanted into the substrate at one side of the stacked gate. A drain having a heavily doped region and a lightly doped region are subsequently formed. Spacers one each side of the stacked gate structure are formed. By using a photoresist layer covering the spacer at the drain end, the spacer at the source end can be reduced by an etching process. The source region of the flash memory is formed by implanting ions into the substrate using the reduced spacer as a mask.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 8, 1999
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2001
    Assignee: United Microelectronics Crop.
    Inventors: Hwi-Huang Chen, Wenchi Ting
  • Patent number: 6232161
    Abstract: A method for fabricating a mask comprises a first pattern in respective of active areas, and a second pattern in respective of dummy active areas. After removing the first pattern, the profiles of the dummy active areas are enlarged. The N-well boundary and the P-well boundary of the second pattern is respectively shielded to form a first composed pattern and a second composed pattern comprising the larger dummy active areas and a shielding pattern. The dummy active areas on the substrate are shielded by the patterns of the embodiment during the process of ion implantation. Thus the resistivity of the dummy active areas is increased, whereby the parasitic capacitance can be prevented from being too large and affecting the performance of the devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 1998
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2001
    Assignee: United Microelectronics Corp.
    Inventors: Coming Chen, Water Lur
  • Patent number: 6228728
    Abstract: According to the inventive method of fabricating a semiconductor device, a silicon substrate is exposed to an oxygen atmosphere of 600° C. to 900° C., for forming silicon oxide films on surfaces of epitaxial silicon layers and those of silicon fragments. Thus, a method of fabricating a semiconductor device capable of preventing electrodes thereof from shorting can be provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 1999
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2001
    Assignee: Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Taisuke Furukawa, Takumi Nakahata, Shigemitsu Maruno, Kohei Sugihara, Yasutaka Nishioka, Satoshi Yamakawa, Yasunori Tokuda
  • Patent number: 6224639
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method of producing an electrolytic capacitor including a porous anode and a solid electrolyte made of a conductive polymer, which can improve coating properties of the conductive polymer on an external surface of the porous anode and productivity. By controlling a polymerization rate, it is possible to sufficiently coat the external surface of the porous anode and fill inner spaces of a lot of pores of the porous anode with the conductive polymer with less numbers of polymerization in comparison with a method of the prior art, thereby obtaining an electrolytic capacitor with small leak current and high reliability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 1999
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2001
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Takahiro Hamada, Emiko Igaki, Masakazu Tanahashi, Yasunobu Tsuji, Chiharu Hayashi, Yoshihiko Tsujikawa
  • Patent number: 6225165
    Abstract: High density static memory cells and arrays containing gated lateral bipolar transistors which can be latched in a bistable on state. Each transistor memory cell includes two gates which are pulse biased during the write operation to latch the cell. Also provided is a CMOS fabrication process to create the cells and arrays.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 13, 1998
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2001
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell P. Noble, Jr., Leonard Forbes
  • Patent number: 6221723
    Abstract: A method of setting a plurality of different threshold voltage levels to a plurality of cell regions for a mask programmable semiconductor device by carrying out a second impurity first-code selective ion-implantation, into at least a first-selected one of said plurality of cell regions doped with a first impurity to have a first threshold voltage level so that the at least the first-selected one of said cell regions has a second threshold voltage level which is different from the first threshold voltage level, the second impurity of the first-code selective ion-implantation being heavier than said first impurity so as to suppress any excess thermal diffusion to avoid variations in threshold voltage level of the cell regions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 1998
    Date of Patent: April 24, 2001
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventor: Masao Kunitou
  • Patent number: 6221709
    Abstract: A method of fabricating an integrated circuit having an n-channel and a p-channel transistor is provided. The method includes forming LDD regions for the n-channel transistors self-aligned to the gate electrodes. A first oxide is then formed over the structure and the n-type silicon regions are implanting with a p+ type dopant through the first oxide to form the source and drain regions of the p-channel transistor. A second oxide is formed over structure. The two oxide layers are then etched to provide sidewall spacers, having an inner portion formed from the first oxide and an outer portion formed from the second oxide. The p-type silicon regions are implanted with an n+ type dopant to form the low resistivity regions of the n-channel transistor. The p+ implants in the source and drain of the p-channel transistor typically outdiffuse toward the gates during further thermal processing of the device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 1997
    Date of Patent: April 24, 2001
    Assignee: STMicroelectronics, Inc.
    Inventors: Pervez Hassan Sagarwala, Mehdi Zamanian, Ravi Sundaresan
  • Patent number: 6218244
    Abstract: A method of manufacturing a DRAM capacitor is described. A silicon substrate structure includes an oxide layer over a substrate and a polysilicon layer over the oxide layer. The polysilicon layer also includes a plug that penetrates the oxide layer. A patterned photoresist layer is next formed over the polysilicon layer. Spacers having a low etching rate are formed on the sidewalls of the photoresist layer by carrying out a chemical reaction next to the sidewall of the photoresist layer. A dry etching operation is carried out to etch the unreacted photoresist layer and the polysilicon layer exposed by the openings in the photoresist layer. Using the spacers as an etching mask, a portion of the polysilicon layer under the photoresist layer is removed by continuing the dry etching operation. Lastly, the spacers are removed to form a crown-shaped capacitor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 13, 2000
    Date of Patent: April 17, 2001
    Assignee: Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg Co Ltd
    Inventors: Bor-Wen Chan, Yuan-Hung Liu
  • Patent number: 6218236
    Abstract: A method of forming a shallow outdiffused buried bitline in a vertical semiconductor memory device is disclosed which utilizes annealing and oxidation to drive-in and pile-up the dopant atom into an outdiffused region. The anneal/oxidation which is carried out at two different temperature ranges allows for fabricating buried bitlines having the lowest resistance as possible at a maximum dopant concentration, yet being formed near the surface interface of the vertical pillars. Semiconductor memory devices containing the outdiffused buried bitline regions are also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 1999
    Date of Patent: April 17, 2001
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Laertis Economikos, Hussein Ibrahim Hanafi, Thomas Safron Kanarsky, Cheruvu Suryanarayana Murthy
  • Patent number: 6214674
    Abstract: A method of fabricating a high-voltage device suitable for a low-voltage device. A well formed by ion implantation in the high-voltage device region serves as a drift region for fabricating the high-voltage device. Therefore, one mask is used to define a portion of the wells of the high-voltage device region and the wells of low-voltage device region. It is not necessary to use multiple masks to pattern the well of the low-voltage device region and the drift region of the high-voltage device region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 1998
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2001
    Assignee: United Microelectronics Corp.
    Inventor: Ming-Tsung Tung
  • Patent number: 6211011
    Abstract: A memory cell having an asymmetric source and drain connection to virtual ground bit-lines providing an abrupt junction suitable for band-to-band hot electron generation and a gradual junction suitable for Fowler-Nordheim tunneling on each side of the cells. A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device comprising row and column arrangement of the cells in which adjacent columns of cells share a single virtual ground bit line.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 1998
    Date of Patent: April 3, 2001
    Assignee: Macronix International Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Chia-Shing Chen
  • Patent number: 6207491
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a method for eliminating leakage current in a semiconductor device by preventing silicon loss in a first area of a substrate during fabricating the semiconductor device. The method according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps. Firstly, form a first gate structure on a second area of the substrate, and form a first structure together with a second structure on the first area of the substrate. Then form a dielectric layer on the topography of the wafer. Next, etch a thickness of the dielectric layer until about 200-1000 angstroms in thickness of the dielectric layer is remained. Subsequently, form a photoresist pattern on the first area of the substrate, and etch the exposed second portion of the dielectric layer to form spacers of the first gate structure. The spacers and the gate structure constitute a gate electrode of a first transistor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 1999
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2001
    Assignee: Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation
    Inventors: Huey-Chi Chu, Yeh-Sen Lin, Chia-Ching Tung
  • Patent number: 6197635
    Abstract: Improved dimensional accuracy of the gate electrode structure in the peripheral circuitry region of a semiconductor device is achieved by avoiding ARC loss during photoresist stripping associated with plural maskings in the core memory cell region during patterning and ion implantations. Processing is simplified by employing the same mask in the memory cell region for patterning the stacked gate electrode structure and for ion implanting the shallow source/drain extensions. Embodiments include initially etching to form the gate electrode structure in the peripheral circuitry region. Subsequently, processing in the core memory cell region is conducted by etching the stacked gate electrode structure and ion implanting to form the source/drains with attendant stripping of photoresist layers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 13, 1999
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2001
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Tommy C. Hsaio, Mark T. Ramsbey, Yu Sun
  • Patent number: 6190997
    Abstract: To avoid damage to carrier substrates in a device for mechanically aligning carrier substrates for electronic circuits, the carrier substrates having two main surfaces and a peripheral surface and being supplied to a horizontal fixture of the device, centering elements being forced to engage on the peripheral surface of the carrier substrates to align the carrier substrates in the horizontal fixture, it is proposed that at least two centering elements be mounted rotationally and displaceably in the axial direction on at least two first shafts that are oriented in parallel with one another and in parallel with the horizontal fixture. The centering elements engage on sections of the peripheral surface of the carrier substrate disposed opposite one another in a first direction, and at least two further centering elements engage with stop faces at sections of the peripheral surface of the carrier substrate disposed opposite one another in a second direction running perpendicularly to the first direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2001
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventors: Klaus Becker, Eugen Armbruster
  • Patent number: 6191446
    Abstract: A process is provided for forming a transistor in which the channel length is controlled by the depth of a trench etched into a semiconductor substrate. A masking layer extending across the substrate and a portion of the substrate are etched simultaneously to form the trench. A gate dielectric is formed upon the opposed sidewall surfaces of the trench. A pair of gate conductors are then formed upon the exposed lateral surfaces of the gate dielectric and the masking layer. Subsequently, an unmasked region of the substrate underneath the trench is implanted with dopant species and then annealed to form a source junction. The anneal temperature is preferably sufficient to cause the dopant species in the source junction to migrate laterally past the opposed sidewall surfaces of the trench. Drain junctions may subsequently be formed within the substrate a spaced distance above the source region on opposite sides of the trench.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 4, 1998
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2001
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Mark I. Gardner, John J. Bush, Jon D. Cheek
  • Patent number: 6191000
    Abstract: The invention relates to a shallow trench isolation method used in a semiconductor wafer that comprises a plurality of predetermined active regions, a plurality of shallow trenches used for electrically isolating the plurality of active regions, and a wafer alignment region wherein at least one recess having a predetermined pattern is formed on the surface of the wafer. In the method of the present invention, an insulation layer is first formed on the surface of the semiconductor wafer to fill the recesses in the wafer alignment region and the plurality of shallow trenches. An etching process is then implemented to reduce the thickness of the insulation layer on the surface of the working region, the working region having a relatively high density of active regions. Also, the insulation layer is completely removed from the recesses within the wafer alignment region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 23, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2001
    Assignee: Macronix International Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Chin-Yi Huang, Chin-Jen Huang, Chen-Chin Liu, Yun Chang
  • Patent number: 6184081
    Abstract: A process for fabricating a DRAM capacitor structure, in which the capacitor upper plate structure is defined during the formation of bit line contact hole opening, and substrate contact hole opening procedure, eliminating the need for a specific upper plate, photolithographic masking procedure, has been developed. The process features isolating a polysilicon upper plate structure, during an isotropic RIE cycle, also creating an undercut polysilicon region, in the contact holes, which are opened simultaneously during the upper plate definition. Subsequent silicon nitride spacers, on the sides of the contact holes, provides insulation between the polysilicon upper plate structure, and bit line, and substrate contact plug structures, now located in the contact holes. The undercut polysilicon regions, allow the formation of thicker silicon nitride spacers, to be formed in this undercut region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2001
    Assignee: Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation
    Inventors: Erik S. Jeng, Bi-Ling Chen, Wei-Ray Lin, Yu-Chun Ho, Ming-Hong Kuo
  • Patent number: 6184086
    Abstract: A memory device, and a method for manufacturing same, comprises a semiconductor layer having a first surface and a second surface, and further having a trench therein. The memory device further comprises a transistor source within the first surface of the semiconductor layer, the source having a lower surface, wherein a bottom of the trench extends below the lower surface of the source. A transistor drain within the second surface of the semiconductor layer comprises a lower surface with the trench bottom extending below the lower surface of the drain and wherein the trench separates the source and drain. The memory device further comprises a transistor channel along at least the bottom of the trench, a floating gate at least partially within the trench, and a control gate overlying the floating gate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 1998
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2001
    Assignee: Micron Technology Inc.
    Inventor: David Y. Kao
  • Patent number: 6177346
    Abstract: A method of forming a field effect transistor includes, a) providing a silicon substrate having impurity doping of a first conductivity type; b) providing source and drain diffusion regions of a second conductivity type within the silicon substrate, the source region and the drain region being spaced from one another to define a channel region therebetween within the silicon substrate; c) providing a gate relative to the silicon substrate operatively adjacent the channel region; and d) providing respective ohmic electrical contacts to the source region and the drain region, the electrical contact to the source region comprising a substrate leaking junction, the electrical connection to the drain region not comprising a substrate leaking junction. A field effect transistor is also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 1998
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2001
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventor: Monte Manning