Patents Examined by Omar Mojaddedi
  • Patent number: 9418870
    Abstract: A layer of amorphous silicon is formed on a germanium-on-insulator substrate, or a layer of germanium is formed on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. An anneal is then performed which causes thermal mixing of silicon and germanium atoms within one of the aforementioned structures and subsequent formation of a silicon germanium-on-insulator material.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2016
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen W. Bedell, Joel P. De Souza, Jeehwan Kim, Devendra K. Sadana
  • Patent number: 9412603
    Abstract: Embodiments described herein generally relate to methods of forming sub-10 nm node FinFETs. Various processing steps are performed on a substrate to provide a trench defining a mandrel structure. Sidewalls of the mandrel structure and a bottom surface of the trench are oxidized and subsequently etched to reduce a width of the mandrel structure. The oxidation and etching of the mandrel structure may be repeated until a desired width of the mandrel structure is achieved. A semiconducting material is subsequently deposited on a regrowth region of the mandrel structure to form a fin structure. The oxidizing and etching the mandrel structure provides a method for forming the fin structure which can achieve sub-10 nm node dimensions and provide increasingly smaller FinFETs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 9, 2016
    Assignee: APPLIED MATERIALS, INC.
    Inventors: Ying Zhang, Hua Chung
  • Patent number: 9373718
    Abstract: An etching method adapted to forming grooves in Si-substrate and FinFET transistor manufactured thereof are provided. The etching method includes providing a silicon substrate, at least two gate structures formed on the silicon substrate and at least two gate spacer structures disposed on the silicon substrate; performing a first etching process on the silicon substrate to form a first groove, which has a base and two inclined sidewalls, ascending to respective bottoms of the gate structures, and are interconnected with the base, respectively; and performing a second etching process on the silicon substrate at the base of the first groove, so as to form a second groove in an inverted -symbol shape, wherein the two inclined sidewalls of the first groove are interconnected with the second groove respectively, and the first etching process is substantially different from the second etching process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 21, 2016
    Assignee: UNITED MICROELECTRONICS CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jhen-Cyuan Li, Shui-Yen Lu, Man-Ling Lu, Yu-Cheng Tung, Chung-Fu Chang
  • Patent number: 9299796
    Abstract: A method for manufacturing a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) gate stack structure in an insta-MOS field-effect-transistor (i-MOSFET) includes the following steps of: forming a silicon nitride layer over a silicon substrate; forming a nanopillar structure including a silicon-germanium alloy layer in contact with the silicon nitride layer; and performing a thermal oxidation process on the nanopillar structure to cause germanium atoms in the silicon-germanium alloy layer to penetrate the underneath silicon nitride layer to form a silicon-germanium shell layer in contact with the silicon substrate and a germanium nanosphere located over the silicon germanium shell layer, and to form a separating layer between the silicon-germanium shell layer and the germanium nanosphere by oxidizing silicon atoms from the silicon nitride layer or the silicon substrate, thereby forming a germanium/silicon dioxide/silicon-germanium i-MOS gate stack structure capable of solving interfacial issues between silicon and germanium and b
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2016
    Assignee: NATIONAL CENTRAL UNIVERSITY
    Inventors: Pei-Wen Li, Wei-Ting Lai, Ting-Chia Hsu, Kuo-Ching Yang, Po-Hsiang Liao, Thomas George
  • Patent number: 9236393
    Abstract: A 3D NAND memory has vertical NAND strings across multiple memory planes above a substrate, with each memory cell of a NAND string residing in a different memory layer. Word lines in each memory plane each has a series of socket components aligned to embed respective floating gates of a group memory cells. In this way, the word line to floating gate capacitive coupling is enhanced thereby allowing a 4 to 8 times reduction in cell dimension as well as reducing floating-gate perturbations between neighboring cells. In one embodiment, each NAND string has source and drain switches that each employs an elongated polysilicon gate with metal strapping to enhance switching. The memory is fabricated by an open-trench process on a multi-layer slab that creates lateral grottoes for forming the socket components.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 12, 2016
    Assignee: SANDISK TECHNOLOGIES INC.
    Inventor: Raul Adrian Cernea