Electrical components for microelectronic devices and methods of forming the same

Abstract

Electrical components for microelectronic devices and methods for forming electrical components. One particular embodiment of such a method comprises depositing an underlying layer onto a workpiece, and forming a conductive layer on the underlying layer. The method can continue by disposing a dielectric layer on the conductive layer. The underlying layer is a material that causes the dielectric layer to have a higher dielectric constant than without the underlying layer being present under the conductive layer. For example, the underlying layer can impart a structure or another property to the film stack that causes an otherwise amorphous dielectric layer to crystallize without having to undergo a separate high temperature annealing process after disposing the dielectric layer onto the conductive layer. Several examples of this method are expected to be very useful for forming dielectric layers with high dielectric constants because they avoid using a separate high temperature annealing process.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to the design and fabrication of electrical components for microelectronic devices, and in particular, several examples of the invention relate to metal-insulator-metal capacitors for memory devices. Background technique [0002] A dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device has a memory cell with a field effect transistor and a capacitor. High capacity DRAM devices typically use non-planar capacitor structures, such as trench capacitors or stacked capacitors. Most high-capacity DRAM devices use nonplanar capacitors, although nonplanar capacitor structures typically require more masking, deposition, and etching processes than planar capacitor structures. Of both non-planar and planar capacitors, metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structures provide higher capacitance to enable higher density devices. A typical MIM capacitor has top and bottom conductive layers separated by a dielectric layer. The top and bottom conductive layer...

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Problems solved by technology

However, this additional high temperature processing used to crystallize the tantalum oxide can affect the thermal budget of fabricating microelectronic devices

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