Method of Forming Sharp Beak of Poly by Nitrogen Implant to Improve Erase Speed for Split-Gate Flash

(1) Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to split-gate memory cells used in flash EEPROMs (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memories), and in particular, to a method of forming a sharp beak adjacent to the floating polygate of the same by implanting nitrogen ions at the underlying interface in order to improve the erase speed of the split-gate flash memory.

(2) Description of the Related Art

Ion implantation can be used to advantage in, among other things, controlling the growth of oxides in different materials. Thus, nitrogen ions implanted within a semiconductor substrate will retard the oxidation rate of the substrate while fluorine ions will advance the oxidation rate of the substrate. In this invention, a new method of implanting impurity ions is disclosed where the shape and size of the well-known gate bird's beak can be controlled. This, in turn, will improve the performance of memory cells.

The size and shape of the areas comprising a memory cell determine to a large extent its functional properties-erase speed being one of the important ones. Thus, the dimensions and shape of the so-called "bird's beak", which is described below more in detail in relation to nonvolatile memories, play an important role in transferring current to and fro between the substrate and the floating gate, and hence the charging speed of the memory cell, and the amount of surface current leakage that takes place around and near the bird's beak.

Among the nonvolatile read only memories, such as masked-ROMs, Electrically Programmable (EP-ROMs), EEPROMs have been known as one type of nonvolatile memory semiconductor devices capable of electrically writing and erasing information. However, EEPROMs require two transistors to operate. In Flash EEPROM, the memory cell includes one transistor, and the contents of all the memory's cells can be erased simultaneously through the use of an electrical erase signal. Hence, with Flash memory, in addition to gaining speed in having the cells erased much more rapidly, higher levels of integration can be achieved with fewer devices.

The unit cell of an EEPROM memory device is usually comprised of a silicon substrate provided with a source and a drain, and two polysilicon gates; that is, a MOS transistor having a channel defined by the source and drain regions, a floating gate to which there is no direct electrical connection and a control gate with a direct electrical connection. The floating gate is separated from the substrate by an insulating layer of, for example, silicon oxide. The control gate is generally positioned over the floating gate with a layer of insulating material separating the two gates. To program a transistor, charge is transferred from the substrate through the insulator and is stored on the floating gate of the transistor. The amount of charge is set to one of two levels to indicate whether the cell has been programmed "on" or "off." "Reading" of the cell's state is accomplished by applying appropriate voltages to the cell source and drain, and to the control gate, and then sensing the amount of charge on the floating gate. To erase the contents of a cell, the programming process is reversed, namely, charges are removed from the floating gate by transferring them back to the substrate through the insulator. A fairly recent technology is "flash" memories in which the entire array of memory cells, or a significant subset thereof, is erased simultaneously. Flash EEPROMs combine the advantages of UV-erasable EPROMS and floating-gate EEPROMs. They offer high density, small cell size, the well-known hot-electron writability of EPROMs, together with the easy reusability, on-board reprogrammability, and electron-tunneling erasure feature of EEPROMs (See S. Wolf, "Silicon Processing for the VLSI Era," vol. 2, Lattice Press, Sunset Beach, Calif., 1990, pp. 632-634.)

Programming and erasing of an EEPROM is accomplished electrically and in-circuit by using Fowler-Nordheim tunneling as is well known in prior art. Basically, a sufficiently high voltage is applied to the control gate and drain while the source is grounded to create a flow of electrons in the channel region in the substrate. Some of these electrons gain enough energy to transfer from the substrate to the floating gate through the thin oxide layer by means of Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. The tunneling is achieved by raising the voltage level on the control gate to a sufficiently high value of about 12 volts. As the electronic charge builds up on the floating gate, the electric field is reduced, which reduces the electron flow. When, finally, the high voltage is removed, the floating gate remains charged to a value larger than the threshold voltage of a logic high that would turn it on. Thus, even when a logic high is applied to the control gate, the EEPROM remains off. Since tunneling process is reversible, the floating gate can be erased by grounding the control gate and raising the drain voltage, thereby causing the stored charge on the floating gate to flow back to the substrate. Of critical importance in the tunneling region is the quality and the thinness of the tunneling oxide separating the floating gate from the substrate. Usually a thickness of between about 80 to 120 Angstroms is required to facilitate Fowler-Nordheim tunneling.

A cross section of a conventional Flash EEPROM is shown in FIG. 1. Drain impurity diffusion layer (16) and a source impurity diffusion layer (17) are formed on a main surface of the semiconductor substrate (10) and are spaced from each other by a predetermined distance with a channel region therebetween. The conventional Flash EEPROM further includes a floating gate electrode (13) formed on the channel region with a first gate oxide film (12) therebetween, a control gate electrode (15) formed on the floating gate electrode (13) with an insulating film (14) therebetween, an interlayer thermal oxide film (18) covering the semiconductor substrate (10), floating gate electrode (13) and control gate electrode (15), and an interlayer insulating film (19) covering the interlayer thermal oxide film (18). Gate bird's beak oxide films (20) are formed at opposite ends of the first gate oxide film (12) and opposite end of the insulating film (14). The interlayer insulating film (19) contains impurity such as boron or phosphorous. The purpose of the interlayer thermal oxide film (18) is to prevent the movement of impurity such as boron of phosphorous of the interlayer insulating film (19) into the semiconductor substrate (10), control gate electrode (15) or floating gate electrode (13) and thus to prevent change of the electrical characteristics thereof.

After the final step of forming the interlayer insulating film (19) to cover the interlayer thermal oxide film (18) shown in FIG. 1, usually heat treatment by a reflow method is carried out to flatten the interlayer insulating film (19). During this process as well as during thermally growing the thermal oxide layer (18) by means of wet oxidation, oxidizer (H.sub.2 O) penetrates the interlayer insulating film (19) and interlayer thermal oxide film (18). This causes further oxidization between the semiconductor substrate (10) and the ends of the floating gate electrode (13), and between the control gate electrode (15) and the floating gate electrode (13). As a result, the gate bird's beak oxide films (20) are formed. Consequently, the lower end of the floating gate electrode (13) contacts the gate bird's beak oxide films (20) so that the lower end of the floating gate electrode (13) is oxidized to a large extent as compared with the other portions.

The gate bird's beak oxide film (20) can form either at the lower end of the floating gate (13) and the source impurity diffusion layer (17), or at the lower end of the floating gate near the drain impurity diffusion layer (16), or at both locations. In these cases, the conventional "beak" of the bird's beak is usually long and elongated, thus increasing the size of the cell and at the same time providing paths for current leakage and, therefore, low memory speed.

The formation of a conventional bird's beak in a polysilicon gate is better shown in FIGS. 1b and 1c. In FIG. 1b, layers of gate oxide (210), polysilicon (220) and nitride (230) are successively formed on substrate (200) and then patterned with a photomask layer (240) to define the floating polygate region (260). Subsequently, polysilicon layer (220) is oxidized whereby gate bird's beaks (221) and (221') are formed as well known in the art. It is proposed in this invention a method of implanting the polysilicon so as to decrease the growth of the protrusion of gate bird's beak as shown by reference numerals (221) and (221') in FIG. 1c to a smaller size and sharper shape shown by reference numerals (225) and (225'). It will be known by those skilled in the art that the smaller the birds' beak, the smaller is the encroachment under the polysilicon edge, and hence the smaller is the impact on the electric-field intensity between the corner edge of the floating gate (229) and the control gate (280) of the completed cell structure shown in FIG. 1d, and thus faster is the memory speed. (See S. Wolf and R.N. Tauber, "Silicon Processing for the VLSI Era," vol. 2, Lattice Press, Sunset Beach, Calif., 1990, p. 438). It will also be appreciated that the smaller the bird's beak, the smaller is the overall size of the memory cell contributing to the increased speed of the memory.

Related art teaches methods of employing ion implantation in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, but not in the important area of controlling the forming of bird's beak. Thus, Zaldivar, et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,084 show a method of forming an antifuse utilizing nitrogen implant. Kobushi, et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,368) show a method of forming polycide gate using nitrogen/oxygen implant process. Hsu, et al., on the other hand, teach a process of growing varying gate oxide thicknesses by changing the oxide growth rate using an implant (U.S. Pat. No. 5,480,828). A method of forming sharp beak of poly by nitrogen implant to improve erase speed for split-gate flash memories is disclosed in the embodiments of this invention.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a split-gate memory cell with a sharp polygate bird's beak.

It is another object of this invention to provide a method of implanting nitrogen ions at the interface underlying the floating polygate of a split-gate memory cell.

It is yet another object of this invention to provide a method of reducing leakage current and increasing the speed of a split-gate memory cell.

These objects are accomplished by providing a semiconductor substrate having a gate oxide layer; forming a first polysilicon layer over said gate oxide layer; performing ion implantation on said first polysilicon layer to form a layer of impurity in said polysilicon layer; forming a mask layer over said first polysilicon layer; patterning said mask layer to define a floating gate region in said first polysilicon layer; removing said mask layer; removing said impurity layer from said first polysilicon layer; forming a sharp bird's beak in said floating gate region; etching said first polysilicon layer to form said floating gate; forming an oxide layer over said floating gate; forming a second polysilicon layer over said oxide layer; and patterning said second polysilicon layer to form a control gate, thus completing the split-gate flash memory cell.

The objects of the present inventions are further accomplished by providing a split-gate flash memory with a sharp polygate bird's beak comprising a semiconductor substrate of a first conductivity type having separated first and second regions of a second conductivity type formed therein, the first and second regions defining a substrate channel region therebetween; an implanted floating gate having a sharp bird's beak; a control gate partially overlying and separated by an insulator from said floating gate having a sharp and short portion to reduce surface leakage current and improve erase speed of the memory cell.

FIG. 1a is a partial cross-sectional view of a Flash EEPROM of prior art.

FIG. 1b is a partial cross-sectional view of a semiconductor substrate showing the patterning of a first polysilicon layer, and nitride layer to form a floating gate according to prior art.

FIG. 1c is a partial cross-sectional view of a semiconductor substrate showing the forming of large gate bird's beak of prior art.

FIG. 1d is a partial cross-sectional view of a semiconductor substrate showing the forming of a completed memory cell having a large gate bird's beak of prior art.

FIG. 2a is a partial cross-sectional view of a semiconductor substrate showing the ion implantation of a substrate having layers of gate oxide and polycrystalline silicon according to this invention.

FIG. 2b is a partial cross-sectional view showing the forming of a nitride layer on the substrate of FIG. 2a of this invention.

FIG. 2c is a partial cross-sectional view showing the forming of the floating gate area of the substrate of FIG. 2b according to this invention.

FIG. 2d is a partial cross-sectional view showing the forming of a small gate bird's beak in the substrate of FIG. 2c according to this invention.

FIG. 2e is a partial cross-sectional view of the substrate of FIG. 2d showing the forming of the floating gate of this invention.

FIG. 2f is a partial cross-sectional view of the substrate of FIG. 2e showing the forming of a control gate for the completed split-gate memory cell of this invention.

Referring now to the drawings, in particular to FIGS. 2a-2f, there are shown schematically steps of forming a split-gate flash memory with a sharp and short gate bird's beak which substantially improves the erase speed of the memory cell.

In FIG. 2a, substrate (300), preferably silicon, is provided with gate oxide (310) of a thickness between about 70 to 90 angstroms (.ANG.). A first polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) layer (320) is deposited over the gate oxide to a thickness between about 1000 to 1200 .ANG.. As a key aspect of this invention, the polysilicon layer is then subjected to implantation with ions as shown in FIG. 2a where the ions penetrate the polysilicon layer to a depth (365) between about 50 to 100 angstroms (.ANG.). It is preferred that the implantation be performed with nitrogen ions at a dosage level between about 5.times.10.sup.15 to 9.times.10.sup.15 atoms/cm.sup.2 at an energy between about 50 to 90 KeV. It will be appreciated that the presence of nitrogen ions in the upper layers of polysilicon (320) will retard the oxidation rate of polysilicon in region (365). This feature will be used to advantage at a later step in the forming of a particular bird's beak in the oxidized portions of the first polysilicon layer.

Next, a layer of nitride (330), preferably silicon nitride, is deposited to a thickness between about 700 to 800 .ANG. over the implanted polysilicon layer (320) as shown in FIG. 2b. Hence, an interface (367) is formed between nitride layer (330) and ion rich upper polysilicon layer (365). This is followed by forming a photoresist layer (340) over the nitride layer, and then patterning the nitride layer by using an etch recipe comprising gases SF.sub.6 and O.sub.2, thus defining a floating gate area (350) as shown in FIG. 2c. Along with the key aspect of implanting nitrogen ions into polysilicon layer (320), a main feature of the present invention is the subsequent removal of a portion of ion rich layer (365) at the floating gate area (350) by overetching nitride (330) as shown in FIG. 2c. Thus, a step (323) is formed to a depth between about 100 to 150 .ANG. below the level of original interface (367) where there are no implanted ions vertically therefrom except laterally adjacent thereto.

Oxidation is performed next, preferably wet and at a temperature between about 850.degree. C. to 900.degree. C., and polyoxide starts to form and grow into opening (350) as shown in FIG. 2d. The growth of the polyoxide is usually nonuniform with a somewhat oval shape having thin and thick portions as shown in the same Figure. The nonuniform growth is further enhanced by the presence of nitrogen ions in region (365) outside the floating gate area (350). That is, the oxidation rate is much slower in region (365) than elsewhere in polysilicon layer (320). Consequently, when gate bird's beak (325) starts forming at the polysilicon edge (323), because of the faster oxidation rate inside the gate area (350) free of nitrogen ions relative to the peripheral areas still containing ion rich layer (365), the bird's beak forms quickly without the opportunity to grow to the normal, conventional size.

The importance of implanting the polysilicon layer prior to oxidizing becomes clearer when FIG. 2d of this invention is compared with FIG. 1c of prior art. In the absence of implanted ions in the polysilicon layer (220) of FIG. 1b, the oxidation rate is relatively slow so that a relatively a longer oxidation time permits the formation of a relatively large gate bird's beak (221), of prior art. In comparison, beak (325) of FIG. 2d is much smaller.

After the thermal growth of polysilicon oxide (polyoxide) (327) and the forming of a relatively small and sharp gate bird's beaks (325) and (325') according to this invention shown in FIG. 2d, nitride layer (330) is removed and first polysilicon layer (320) is etched using the oval shaped polyoxide (327) as a mask. Thus, a floating gate (329) is formed as shown in FIG. 2e. It is preferred that the etching recipe comprises gases HBr, C1.sub.2, He and O.sub.2. An oxide layer (370) and a second polysilicon layer (380) are subsequently formed and patterned as shown in FIG. 2f, where the preferred thicknesses are, respectively, between about 200 to 300 .ANG., and 2000 to 2500 .ANG..

The resulting structure of FIG. 2f, with gate oxide (310), floating gate (329), control gate (380), channel (390), source (391) and drain (392) completes the enhanced split-gate flash memory of this invention.

In operation, in the erase mode, for example, the drain electrode of the drain impurity diffusion layer (392) is set in the floating state, and the control gate electrode (380) is set in the grounded state. A high voltage of about 12 volts is applied to a source electrode formed of the source impurity diffusion layer (391). Thereby, a Fowler-Nordheim tunnel current flows from the source impurity diffusion layer (391) to the floating gate electrode (329) through the edge of the gate oxide located under the end of the floating gate electrode (329) near the source impurity diffusion region (391). This Fowler-Nordheim tunnel current is used to draw the electrons from the floating gate electrode (329), whereby the information is erased. The closer coupling between floating gate (329) and control gate (380) through smaller and sharp gate bird's beak (325) renders the erasing operation to be performed in a much faster mode, since the electric field is enhanced by the sharp polysilicon beak.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.