Semiconductor devices may include a substrate, gate electrodes on the substrate, and source/drain regions at both sides of each of the gate electrodes. Each of the gate electrodes may include a gate insulating pattern on the substrate, a lower work-function electrode pattern that is on the gate insulating pattern and has a recessed upper surface, and an upper work-function electrode pattern that conformally extends on the recessed upper surface of the lower work function electrode pattern. Topmost surfaces of the lower work-function electrode patterns may be disposed at an equal level, and the upper work-function electrode patterns may have different thicknesses from each other.

A high-k metal gate device and manufacturing method thereof are provided in the present invention. The method uses a silicon material layer as a battier layer for the lower silicon nitride layer in the NMOS region and then performs an annealing process to turn the silicon material layer into a TiSiN interlayer of the PMOS region and a TiSiN layer of the NMOS region, respectively. TiSiN material can prevent subsequent upper metal atoms from diffusing downward and improve the stability of the metal gate device. Additionally, the silicon material remained on the surface of the NMOS region is subsequently removed, thereby eliminating differences of the thickness of the residual silicon material layer and fluctuations of the threshold voltage of the NMOS region resulted from the differences thereof and further improving the stability of the NMOS device.

A method of forming a semiconductor device includes providing a precursor. The precursor includes a substrate; a gate stack over the substrate; a first dielectric layer over the gate stack; a gate spacer on sidewalls of the gate stack and on sidewalls of the first dielectric layer; and source and drain (S/D) contacts on opposing sides of the gate stack. The method further includes recessing the gate spacer to at least partially expose the sidewalls of the first dielectric layer but not to expose the sidewalls of the gate stack. The method further includes forming a spacer protection layer over the gate spacer, the first dielectric layer, and the S/D contacts.

A metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) with integrated passive structures and methods of manufacturing the same is disclosed. The method includes forming a stacked structure in an active region and at least one shallow trench isolation (STI) structure adjacent to the stacked structure. The method further includes forming a semiconductor layer directly in contact with the at least one STI structure and the stacked structure. The method further includes patterning the semiconductor layer and the stacked structure to form an active device in the active region and a passive structure of the semiconductor layer directly on the at least one STI structure.

A metal gate transistor includes a substrate, a metal gate on the substrate, and a source/drain region in the substrate adjacent to the metal gate. The metal gate includes a high-k dielectric layer, a bottom barrier metal (BBM) layer comprising TiSiN on the high-k dielectric layer, a TiN layer on the BBM layer, a TiAl layer between the BBM layer and the TiN layer, and a low resistance metal layer on the TiN layer.

A semiconductor device may include a strain relaxed buffer layer provided on a substrate to contain silicon germanium, a semiconductor pattern provided on the strain relaxed buffer layer to include a source region, a drain region, and a channel region connecting the source region with the drain region, and a gate electrode enclosing the channel region and extending between the substrate and the channel region. The source and drain regions may contain germanium at a concentration of 30 at % or higher.

A method of fabricating advanced node field effect transistors using a replacement metal gate process. The method includes dopant a high-k dielectric directly or indirectly by using layers composed of multi-layer thin film stacks, or in other embodiments, by a single blocking layer. By taking advantage of unexpected etch selectivity of the multi-layer stack or the controlled etch process of a single layer stack, etch damage to the high-k may be avoided and work function metal thicknesses can be tightly controlled which in turn allows field effect transistors with low Tinv (inverse of gate capacitance) mismatch.

A semiconductor device includes a n-type gate structure over a first semiconductor fin, in which the n-type gate structure is fluorine incorporated and includes a n-type work function metal layer overlying the first high-k dielectric layer. The n-type work function metal layer includes a TiAl (titanium aluminum) alloy, in which an atom ratio of Ti (titanium) to Al (aluminum) is in a range substantially from 1 to 3. The semiconductor device further includes a p-type gate structure over a second semiconductor fin, in which the p-type gate structure is fluorine incorporated includes a p-type work function metal layer overlying the second high-k dielectric layer. The p-type work function metal layer includes titanium nitride (TiN), in which an atom ratio of Ti to N (nitrogen) is in a range substantially from 1:0.9 to 1:1.1.

A method for fabricating semiconductor device is disclosed. The method includes the steps of: providing a substrate having a fin-shaped structure thereon; forming a first shallow trench isolation (STI) around the fin-shaped structure; dividing the fin-shaped structure into a first portion and a second portion; and forming a second STI between the first portion and the second portion.

A semiconductor structure and the method of forming the same are provided. The method of forming a semiconductor structure includes forming a recess feature in a basal layer, forming a metal layer on the basal layer, exposing the metal layer to a tungsten halide gas to form an oxygen-deficient metal layer, and forming a bulk tungsten layer on the oxygen-deficient metal layer.