Method for manufacturing a semiconductor device

• Main Authors: LUNING, SCOTT, AMNIPUR, MASSUD, WU, DAVID
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 01.10.2007
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

A method is provided, the method including forming a gate dielectric layer above a substrate layer, forming a gate conductor layer above the gate dielectric layer, forming a first hard mask layer above the gate conductor layer, and forming a second hard mask layer above the first hard mask layer. The method also includes forming a trimmed photoresist mask above the second hard mask layer, and forming a patterned hard mask in the second hard mask layer using the trimmed photoresist mask to remove portions of the second hard mask layer, the patterned hard mask having a first dimension. The method further includes forming a selectively etched hard mask in the first hard mask layer by removing portions of the first hard mask layer adjacent the patterned hard mask, the selectively etched hard mask having a second dimension less than the first dimension, and forming a gate structure using the selectively etched hard mask to remove portions of the gate conductor layer above the gate dielectric layer.