High Voltage CMOS With Local Oxidation for Self-Aligned Guard Rings and Process of Fabrication

The present invention generally relates to integrated circuits and more specifically to an improved method for forming high density integrated circuits containing complementary field effect transistors including guard rings.

Integrated circuits presently being used require power supply voltage greater than five volts. To achieve this, the turn on voltage of the field or parasitic thick oxide devices must be increased above the supply voltage. This is difficult to achieve in a high performance integrated process involving complementary MOS devices with polysilicon gates and ion implanted source and drains. One method to achieve higher field thresholds is by first increasing the size of the silicon dioxide steps on the chip resulting in larger final integrated chip size due to photoresist limitations, and secondly by increasing the P- and N-type background doping levels in the wafer, which degrades the device performance.

Another method uses guard rings or channel stops which are regions of very high impurity doping concentrations surrounding each N- and P-channel thin oxide MOS device. The high doping concentration increases the field threshold so high that the drain to source breakdown voltage of the thin oxide devices becomes the limiting factor of the IC power supply voltage. The rings generally require no extra processing steps because they are defined at the same time that the P and N channel devices are formed. This process is illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,620. Separate processing steps for the guard rings and the source and drain are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,484. The guard rings must be separated from each surrounding device to prevent electrical shorts and adjacent rings must not touch. A ring separation of zero results in a process trade off of final device sheet resistivity versus field threshold and device breakdown voltage.

Local oxidation has been used in the formation of MOS devices as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,752,711 and 3,913,211. Since these patents deal generally with single polarity MOS devices, they do not treat the problems involved with forming two different conductivity type guard rings and their interaction. Similarly, the sequence of steps required to produce CMOS devices is not described therein.

Thus there exists a need for providing a method and an integrated circuit to form self-aligned guard rings in complementary integrated field effect transistor circuits to overcome the problems faced by prior art devices and techniques.

The present method and integrated circuit forms complementary insulated gate field effect transistors wherein guard rings are laterally spaced from each other at their outer edge and are aligned at their inner lateral edge with the outer lateral edges of the source and drain of their respective insulated gate field effect transistor. An insulative layer formed in and above the substrate surface causes the top surface of the guard ring to be vertically displaced from the top surface of the respective source and drain. Using an N-conductivity type substrate and a P-type well formed therein, the P.sup.+ guard ring formed has its outer lateral edge coincident with the outer lateral edge of the P-well.

The process of fabrication begins with applying an oxide layer on the substrate with an opening for defining a P-type well to be formed therein, followed by doping the exposed surface of the substrate to form a P-type well. A nitride mask layer is then applied over a portion of the oxide and a portion of the well to define areas under the nitride layer in which the complementary insulated gate field effect transistors will be formed. P-type impurities are then introduced into the exposed surface of the P-type well between the edge of the oxide layer and the nitride layer covering a portion of the well to form a P-type guard ring. A masking layer is then applied over the total well and adjacent portions of the oxide and N-type impurities are introduced through the oxide between the exposed nitride layer and the masking layer into the substrate to form N-type guard rings spaced from the previously formed P-type guard ring. The masked layer is then removed and the substrate is then exposed to an oxidizing atmosphere to oxidize the surface of the substrate, except where covered by the nitride layer, so as to form the substrate surface area vertically displaced from the N- and P-type guard rings formed and having a vertically aligned lateral edge. The nitride layer is then removed and standard processing steps are used to form insulated gate field effect transistor devices in the exposed substrate surfaces defined by the oxide layer.

An object of the present invention is to provide a process for forming complementary insulated gate field effect transistors capable of high voltage operation without a loss in chip real estate or device performance.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a process and structure allowing more flexibility in the selection of doping levels under the thin oxide region.

A further object of the invention is to provide a process of fabrication of guard rings whose edges are self-aligned or coincident with edge of the source and drain regions of the devices they surround.

Other objects, advantages, and novel features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

FIGS. 1-5 are cross-sectional views illustrating the process steps used in fabricating the self-aligned N- and P-conductivity type guard rings using local oxidation.

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view illustrating complementary insulated gate field effect transistors formed in the substrate prepared by FIGS. 1-5.

The process of fabrication of the self-aligned guard rings illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6 begins as illustrated in FIG. 1 with a substrate 10, for example, N-type silicon having a relatively thin oxide layer 12 grown thereon. A standard masking technique is then used to define an opening formed in the oxide layer 12 to expose surface area 14 into which is deposited P-type impurities, for example, boron, as illustrated in FIG. 1. Oxide layer 12 must be thick enough to mask against the P-type impurity doping steps forming the well 18 and the P.sup.+ guard ring 24.

A thin oxide region 16 is grown over the surface 14 and the boron impurities are diffused to an appropriate junction depth to form the P.sup.- well 18. Considering oxide layer 12, the first masking layer, a second masking layer 20 of, for example, silicon nitride, is formed over the substrate and delineated so as to form a mask portion on the oxide layer 16 above the P.sup.- well 18 and a portion on oxide layer 12 above the substrate 10, as illustrated in FIG. 2. As will become apparent from subsequent description, the nitride layer must be thick enough to mask against the field oxidation and the impurity doping used to form the P- and N-conductivity type guard rings. The area below the nitride mask illustrated in FIG. 2 will become the thin oxide regions into which the source and drain and gate of both the P- and N-channel devices will be formed.

Openings 22 are formed by etching, for example, in oxide layer 16 to expose the portion of surface 14 of P.sup.- well 18 into which the P-type guard rings are to be formed. The exposed surface between the oxide layer 12 and the nitride layer 20, noted as openings 22, are doped with P-type impurities, for example, boron by deposition and diffusion, to form P.sup.+ guard ring 24. It should be noted that by using the original opening in oxide layer 12, the outer lateral edge of the P.sup.+ guard rings are coincidental with the lateral edge of the P.sup.- well 18. Similarly, by using the nitride mask layer 20, the inside lateral edges of the P.sup.+ ring 24 will be aligned laterally with the source and drains of the N-channel device to be formed in the P.sup.- well 18. The thickness of nitride layer 20 and the thickness of the oxide layer 12 are sufficient to mask the P.sup.+ impurity doping so as to limit them to the areas defined by openings 22. The structure at this point in the process is illustrated in FIG. 3.

A third mask layer 26 is applied and delineated by well-known delineation techniques to totally cover or mask the P.sup.- well 18 and adjacent portions of the substrate 10 as illustrated in FIG. 4. N-type impurities, for example, phosphorous, are then doped in the exposed regions of oxide layer 12 between the mask layer 26 and the exposed nitride layer 20 to form N.sup.+ guard rings 28 in the substrate. By making masking layer 26 cover adjacent portions of the substrate adjacent to P.sup.- well 18 the finally formed N.sup.+ guard ring is spaced from the P.sup.+ guard ring 24 and the P.sup.- well 18. Although the oxide layer 12 was sufficient to mask the P.sup.+ impurity doping forming guard ring 24, it is not sufficiently thick to prevent the formation of the N.sup.+ guard ring 28.

Although the formation of P.sup.- well 18, P.sup.+ guard ring 24, and N.sup.+ guard ring 28 has been described and illustrated as being formed by deposition and diffusion, these regions may be formed by ion implantation, the essence being the formation of the masking layers and the self-alignment of the inner lateral edges of the guard rings with the to-be-formed source and drains of their respective insulated gate field effect transistors and the separation of the outer edges of the guard rings from each other.

The mask layer 26 is then removed and the substrate is exposed to an oxidizing atmosphere to grow field oxide in all the regions except those masked with the nitride layer 20. As illustrated in FIG. 5, the final oxide layer 30 has grown in the substrate 10 as well as above the substrate so as to vertically isolate substrate surface portions 32, and 34 of the substrate from the P.sup.+ and N.sup.+ guard rings 24 and 28. The oxide layer 30 should be sufficiently thick to mask against subsequent diffusion forming the source and drain regions. Although the guard rings 24 and 28 are slightly vertically separated from the surface 34 of the substrate, the interior lateral edges of the guard rings are substantially coincidental vertically with the edge of the field oxide layer 30. This is illustrated in FIG. 5.

The nitride layer 20 and the remaining portions of oxide layer 12 and 16 thereunder are stripped to expose substrate surface regions 32 and 34. The formation of complementary insulated gate field effect transistors is then performed using the field oxide 30 as a mask in a standard process. This includes growing gate oxide on exposed surface regions 32 and 34, depositing and defining, for example, polysilicon gates on the gate oxide, using the polysilicon formed gate and the field oxide as a mask to form the source and drains of the respective P- and N-channel devices. A final oxide layer is deposited thereon and metal contacts are made to the source and drains and gates of the P- and N-channel devices.

The final configuration, as illustrated in FIG. 6, shows a P-channel device 36 having source and drain regions 38 vertically displaced from but contiguous with the N.sup.+ guard rings 28 and having their outer lateral edges aligned with the inner lateral edges of the guard ring 28. Similarly, an N channel device 40 has N.sup.+ source and drain regions 42 vertically displaced from but contiguous with the P.sup.+ guard ring 24 and their outer lateral edges are aligned with the inner lateral edges of the guard rings 24. Thus a process has been described which provides an integrated circuit having complementary insulated gate field effect transistors wherein the guard rings are formed separated from each other and have their interior lateral edges self-aligned with the exterior lateral edges of the source and drain of their respective channel devices.

From the preceding description of the preferred embodiments, it is evident that the objects of the invention are obtained in that high voltage, high density complementary insulated gate field effect transistors are formed using self-aligned techniques and localized oxidation. Although the invention has been described and illustrated in detail, it is to be clearly understood that the same is by way of illustration and example only and is not to be taken by way of limitation. Although the formation of the impurity regions of the substrate were described as using deposition and diffusion, it is obvious that the same may be formed by ion implantation. Similarly, the substrate may be of P-conductivity type and an N-type well would be formed therein. Other insulated gate field effect devices other than CMOS devices may be formed in the substrate with the self-aligned guard rings. The spirit and scope of this invention are to be limited only by the terms of the appended claims.