Decoupling capacitor for high frequency noise immunity

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for an on-chip decoupling device and method. One aspect of the present subject matter is a capacitor. One embodiment of the capacitor includes a substrate, a high K dielectric layer doped with nano crystals disposed on the substrate, and a top plate layer disposed on the high K dielectric layer. According to one embodiment, the high K dielectric layer includes Al2O3. According to other embodiments, the nano crystals include gold nano crystals and gold nano crystals. One capacitor embodiment includes a MIS (metal-insulator-silicon) capacitor fabricated on silicon substrate, and another capacitor embodiment includes a MIM (metal-insulator-metal) capacitor fabricated between the interconnect layers above silicon substrate. The structure of the capacitor is useful for reducing a resonance impedance and a resonance frequency for an integrated circuit chip. Other aspects are provided herein.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION(S) [0001] This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 752,351, filed Jan. 6, 2004; which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 944,986 filed on Aug. 30, 2001; each of which is incorporated herein by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates generally to integrated circuits and, more particularly, to decoupling capacitors for reducing resonance frequency and impendence in high-frequency chip designs. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Goals for integrated circuit design include progressively scaling the design to achieve smaller feature sizes, and using faster clock frequencies beyond 1 GHz. Problems encountered in achieving these goals include the increasing voltage droop and the inductive noise of the active switching nodes, and further include the increasing power supply oscillations and the resulting noise that is generated and transmitted across the chip. [0004] These problems are add...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides an on-chip decoupling device and method for reducing the resonance impedance and resonance frequency of an integrated circuit chip. This is achieved by using a lossy decoupling capacitor with a high K value and a built-in controlled resistance. The capacitor includes a high K dielectric layer doped with nano crystals. The resonance impedance and resonance frequency can be simultaneously lowered by manipulating the capacitance and resistance of the capacitor. The capacitor insulator structure and capacitor embodiments are also provided. The integrated circuit includes a power source, an inductive load, a resistive load, and a capacitive load, and the lossy decoupling capacitor is coupled to the integrated circuit to reduce the resonance impedance and frequency. The method involves forming a decoupling capacitor by providing a first plate, a second plate, and a dielectric formed from a layer of alumina doped with nano crystals.

Problems solved by technology

The MIS capacitor directly consumes the silicon area for fabrication of the capacitors, but potentially requires less processing steps when appropriately integrated with the gate insulator processing.

However, the MIM capacitor potentially impacts the number of required interconnect layers which adds mask level and processing cost.

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