Staggered Stacked Transistor Layout for Contact Landing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional vertical stacked semiconductor device architectures face challenges in forming middle-of-the-line contacts and incur design complexity due to alignment issues between top and bottom active areas, leading to integration difficulties and area penalties.
Innovation Solution
The semiconductor structure employs a staggered stacked configuration for transistor devices, where the active areas of the top and bottom devices are positioned in a staggered manner, allowing for improved contact landing and local interconnects without increasing the overall area, and includes metal interconnects on the frontside or backside of the structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional vertical stacked semiconductor device architectures are used, then device integration is achieved, but alignment issues between top and bottom active areas occur leading to manufacturing complexity and area penalties
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies asymmetry by implementing a staggered configuration where the active areas of the first and second transistor devices are deliberately misaligned. Specifically, the active area of the first transistor device extends beyond the active area of the second transistor device in at least one direction, creating an asymmetric layout that eliminates alignment issues between stacked devices while maintaining compact integration.
2Productivity
If conventional vertical stacked semiconductor device architectures are used, then device integration is achieved, but middle-of-the-line contacts cannot be formed
Solution Approach 1:
The asymmetric staggered configuration creates an offset between the active areas of stacked transistor devices, which provides the necessary space and geometric arrangement to form middle-of-the-line contacts. This misalignment allows contact structures to be positioned between the active areas without requiring perfect alignment, thereby enabling middle-of-the-line contact formation while maintaining device integration.
3Ease of manufacture
If staggered stacked configuration is used, then contact landing and local interconnects are improved, but area penalty may occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by implementing the staggered configuration selectively in specific regions where contact formation is needed, rather than uniformly across the entire device. This allows the active areas to be offset locally to facilitate middle-of-the-line contacts and improve local interconnects, while maintaining compact overall dimensions through optimized regional layout rather than global area expansion.
Data Source
AI summary
A semiconductor structure includes a first transistor device comprising a plurality of channel regions. The semiconductor structure further includes a second transistor device comprising a plurality of channel regions. The first transistor device and the second transistor device are disposed in a stacked configuration. The plurality of channel regions of the first transistor device are disposed in a staggered configuration relative to the plurality of channel regions of the second transistor device.