A method of manufacturing a semiconductor structure includes forming a precursor structure including a plurality of conductive pads on a substrate, an etch stop layer between the conductive pads, and an UBM layer on the conductive pads and the etch stop layer. A plurality of mask structures are formed on the UBM layer, and a plurality of openings are formed between thereof. Each of the mask structures is located on one of the conductive pads, and the openings expose a first portion of the UBM layer. A supporting layer is formed in the openings. The mask structures are removed to form a plurality of cavities exposing a second portion of the UBM layer. A conductive material layer is formed in the cavities. The supporting layer is removed. The first portion of the UBM layer is removed to form a plurality of conductive bumps separated from each other.

Advanced flat metals for microelectronics are provided. While conventional processes create large damascene features that have a dishing defect that causes failure in bonded devices, example systems and methods described herein create large damascene features that are planar. In an implementation, an annealing process creates large grains or large metallic crystals of copper in large damascene cavities, while a thinner layer of copper over the field of a substrate anneals into smaller grains of copper. The large grains of copper in the damascene cavities resist dishing defects during chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP), resulting in very flat damascene features. In an implementation, layers of resist and layers of a second coating material may be applied in various ways to resist dishing during chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP), resulting in very flat damascene features.

An electronic device includes a substrate, a structure over the substrate having an edge wall defining at least a portion of an opening exposing a surface of the substrate, and a dielectric material adjacent and in contact with the edge wall and an adjacent portion of the surface of the substrate. The dielectric material has a profile tapering downward from adjacent the edge wall toward the substrate. Other electronic devices include a substrate and a solder mask over the substrate. The solder mask defines an opening therethrough. A supplemental mask is within the opening of the solder mask, and has a sidewall that slopes away from the solder mask. A conductive structure is adjacent and in contact with at least one of the solder mask or the supplemental mask.

Methods of processing a semiconductor device include providing a patterned mask over a major surface of a substrate and comprising at least one opening exposing a conductive structure, and depositing particles of material by direct material deposition adjacent and in contact with an edge wall of the mask adjacent the at least one opening to form a supplemental mask over the major surface of the substrate. Other methods of processing semiconductor devices include depositing particles of material by direct material deposition adjacent a conductive structure at an intersection of the conductive structure and a surface of a substrate.

In interconnect fabrication (e.g. a damascene process), a barrier layer (possibly conductive) is formed over a substrate with holes, a conductor is formed over the barrier layer, and the conductor and the barrier layer are polished to expose the substrate around the holes and provide interconnect features in the holes. To prevent erosion/dishing of the conductor over the holes, the conductor is covered by another, first layer before polishing; then the first layer, the conductor, and the barrier layer are polished to expose the substrate. The first layer may or may not be conductive. The first layer protects the conductor to reduce or eliminate the conductor erosion/dishing over the holes.

A capacitive microelectromechanical device is provided. The capacitive microelectromechanical device includes a semiconductor substrate, a support structure, an electrode element, a spring element, and a seismic mass. The support structure, for example, a pole, suspension or a post, is fixedly connected to the semiconductor substrate, which may comprise silicon. The electrode element is fixedly connected to the support structure. Moreover, the seismic mass is connected over the spring element to the support structure so that the seismic mass is displaceable, deflectable or movable with respect to the electrode element. Moreover, the seismic mass and the electrode element form a capacitor having a capacitance which depends on a displacement between the seismic mass and the electrode element.

Semiconductor devices and methods for forming semiconductor devices include opening at least one contact via through a sacrificial material down to contacts. Sides of the at least one contact via are lined by selectively depositing a barrier on the sacrificial material, the barrier extending along sidewalls of the at least one contact via from a top surface of the sacrificial material down to a bottom surface of the sacrificial material proximal to the contacts such that the contacts remain exposed. A conductive material is deposited in the at least one contact via down to the contacts to form stacked contacts having the hard mask on sides thereof. The sacrificial material is removed.

A method of fabricating a semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) is disclosed. A first conductive feature and a second conductive feature are provided. A first hard mask (HM) is formed on the first conductive feature. A patterned dielectric layer is formed over the first and the second conductive features, with first openings to expose the second conductive features. A first metal plug is formed in the first opening to contact the second conductive features. A second HM is formed on the first metal plugs and another patterned dielectric layer is formed over the substrate, with second openings to expose a subset of the first metal plugs and the first conductive features. A second metal plug is formed in the second openings.

Multi-patterning methods are provided for use in fabricating an array of metal lines comprising metal lines with different widths. For example, patterning methods implement spacer-is-dielectric (SID)-based self-aligned double patterning (SADP) methods for fabricating an array of metal lines comprising elongated metal lines with different widths, wherein an unblock mask is utilized as part of the process flow to overlap mandrel assigned and non-mandrel assigned features in a given SADP pattern to define regions to unblock a metal fill (remove dielectric material between wires) in a dielectric layer between defined metal lines of an a SADP pattern thus enabling the formation of wide metal lines within any region of a pattern of elongated metal lines formed with a minimum feature width.

In a method according to an exemplary embodiment, a substrate is prepared in a chamber. A patterned resist mask has been formed on a first region of the substrate. A surface of the substrate in a second region is exposed. A film is formed on the substrate in the chamber by sputtering. The film is formed on the substrate in a manner that particles emitted obliquely downward from a target are caused to be incident onto the substrate.