Highly manufacturable and high performance SDR/DDR 4 Gb DRAM

A 4 Gb SDR/DDR DRAM is fabricated with 0.11 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first working DRAM ever achieved at such a high density. The cell size and chip size of the 4 Gb DRAM are approximately 0.1 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and 645 mm/sup 2/, respectively. The key technologies developed for this 4 Gb DRAM are KrF lithography with RET, novel ILD gap-filling, full SAC with LSC, novel W-BL, low-temperature Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ MIS capacitor, and triple level CVD-Al interconnection technology. The key features of these technologies were reported elsewhere (Jeong et al., Tech. Digest of IEDM, pp. 353-6, 2000). The summary of 0.11 /spl mu/m DRAM technology is listed and compared with our previous 0.13 /spl mu/m (Kim et al., 2000) and 0.15 /spl mu/m (Kim et al., 1998) generations. We have found that random single-bit and/or twin-bit failures and block failures are the most critical issues to be solved for achieving good functionality of 4 Gb DRAM. In order to get rid of the single and twin bit failures, 80 nm array transistors, sub-80 nm memory cell contacts and mechanically robust capacitors are developed and triple-level CVD Al technology is optimized to reduce block failure as well as improve chip performance. In this paper, these technologies for achieving good functionality with high performance are highlighted in detail.